BEACH RESORT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 11, 13 January 1945, Page 7

BEACH RESORT

'DECAY AND NEGLECT'

VISITOR'S COMPLAINT

By C.C.T.

My mouth is stopped with dust. Gall and wormwood have penetrated my vitals. The iron has entered into my soul. In short, I am displeased. I have just spent a holiday at cne of Auckland's marine suburbs, charmingly sited 'twixt harbour and gulf, boasting many delightful seaside residences. With imagination, initiative and enterprise it could be made one of the show places of the Southern Seas. Instead it is the most neglected and backward it has ever been mv lot to visit.

How the residents, paying, I am told, among the highest rates in the Dominion, continue to tolerate conditions at this resort is beyond my ken. Maybe they haven't travelled enough and seen what is done at seaside resorts in the south less lavishly endowed with an equable climate, clean sandy beaches and magnificent views.

Let me start on the roads (save the name!). Even poverty-stricken town districts on the fringes of the city can better them. So far as I could see there is only one sealed road—the main highway,- the cost of which was only partly borne by the local authority reported to be controlling the place. On all other roads there are surfaces so rough as to make a hollow mockery of official appeals to conserve rubber. As for the footpaths, evidently they received attention in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh's visit in eighteen something. Prams and pushchairs are sometimes carried over the worst stretches by despairing mothers. New shoes are kicked out in a week. Paspalum sft high sweeps across the paths. I challenge anyone to find worse roads and paths elsewhere in Auckland. I am amazed that property-owners stand for it. Slacks Not Favoured Then we have the dogs on the beach. Not an occasional household pet, well trained and well behaved, but gangs of great, rangy animals that take complete control. They make life a hell for all younger children, they rampage among picnic parties, scattering sand and water far and wide, they bark deafeningly in your ear, they foul the beach and generally create havoc. "Dogs must not be allowed on the beach except on a leash" reads a notice board, one of the few signs in the borough on which the legend is still readable. Most of the few civic amenities exude an air of decay and neglect, but I understand the rate-collecting service is most efficient. At a dance hall I saw a handsome woman in immaculately tailored slacks turned away because she wore no frock, yet at the same dance there were male patrons with shorts, displaying braces and wearing their shirts hanging out. It seems incredible that this sort of thing can happen at a beach dance in the largest city of New Zealand in 1945, but it is symptomatic perhaps of the octopus grip of certain repressive elements stultifying our social life and making us the laughing stock of enlightened visitors from countries overseas. "Ladies Off the Premises" Probably the same baleful influence was at work at the local hostelry one fine afternoon when ladies were asked to leave the premises at 5 p.m. Here was' an idyllic scene. Gentle lawns sloping to the beach on which men and women sat and talked and sipped their ale. No insobriety, no brawling, no misbehaviour, no bad manners. A setting redolent of the free, chummy atmosphere of the English country inn or the gay little cafe on a Parisian boulevard. How few licensing problems there would be if more publicans encouraged their patrons with such an environment. But the pleasant and wholly respectable scene was rudely "disturbed. "Ladies off the premises, please!" Sin had reared its ugly head! At a local picture theatre we booked seats to save waiting in a long queue on a hot evening. We needn't have bothered. There was only one queue whether you reserved or not. Just another petty annoyance. Inside the theatre and right over our heads there was a sort of wooden gallery, and people up there seemed to be either dropping bottles or taking off their boots throughout the performance. Maybe these happenings were accidental. Maybe I had a liver. Maybe I am a congenital grouser, supercritical and uncharitable. - I give you onty the facts, and add this opinion: Auckland's marine suburbs are among its greatest assets. Leaving aside their great tourist value, their residents, who pioneered settlement there, deserve better treatment from the local bodies representing them and those charged/ with providing them with goods arM services.