DAY OF THE CRADLE IN NEW ZEALAND NOW PAST

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28010, 3 July 1956, Page 8

DAY OF THE CRADLE IN NEW ZEALAND NOW PAST

The days when Grannie sat knitting by the kitchen fire, gently rocking the baby's cradle with her foot and humming a song she knew as a child, belong to the era of horse-drawn vehicles. A different age-group now rocks the time away to the beat of rowdy music; cradles are off the market.

A few Dutch mothers, clinging to customs of their homeland, have searched shops and auction rooms for cradles without any success in Christchurch. Some commissioned their husbands to make them, another sent to Holland for one. The eclipse of the cradle in New Zealand seems to date back to 1911, when Sir Truby King, founder of the Plunket Society, set up a "chamber of horrors” at the Karitane Hospital in Dunedin. Among the exhibits there was a rocking cradle, along with tidht binders. Sir Truby King put the brakes on the cradle. He did not approve of rocking. Plunket nurses advise mothers not to rock a pram or cot, but when they go in to the home of a young Dutch mother who has her baby in a rocking cradle they do not tell her to scrap it for a cot.

"Most Dutch mothers want to adopt New Zealand ways for bringing up their babies, since the children will grow up New Zealanders, but others like to do what their mothers did and so long as these habits are not harmful to the baby, we do not interfere.” said a senior Plunket nurse yesterday. Another point against the quaint old cradle is that it sits low on the floor. This means a mother has to bend down too far to pick up a heavy baby. The manager of one of the biggest manufacturing firms of cots and prams was astounded wheh asked if he had a baby’s cradle for sale. He had not seen one for 30 years, he said, and could not remember being asked to make one. An Antique Line “A cradle?” asked an auctioneer. “I haven’t seen a cradle since I was rocked in one myself.” Then, on second thoughts, he remembered one coming into the auction (I rooms about 25 years ago. It was not sold, even as a genuine antique. Salesmen in retail shoos pnnnq r pd

to think a request for a cradle was distinctly odd when there were so many attractive cots on view. It was like asking for a wash-stand and chamber jug in a shop that sold the latest equipment for a modern bathroom.

Probably the most interesting cradle in Christchurch is now in storage at the Canterbury Museum. It was made in Yorkshire in 1700 and lent to the Early Colonists section of the museum by Mrs C. J. Drabble. This is the cradle that was displayed in the old cob kitchen. When the period rooms of the extended museum are opened it will be on show again, in the setting of its time.