BIKINI BAN URGED

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30027, 11 January 1963, Page 2

BIKINI BAN URGED

W.C.T.U. Appeal To Council (N.ZJ’.A.-Reuter— Copyright) CAPE TOWN. A letter from the Women's Christian Temperance Union calling for a ban on the wearing of bikinis by women and children and enforcement of should er-fo-thigh costumes, with skirts for women, caused a sharp debate in the Cape Town City Council. The letter said: "Immodest bathing attire causes disrespect towards womanhood and a lowering of the standards of refinement and modesty. When respect to womanhood goes, everything goes." The chairman of the amenities committee, Cr. J. Tyers, said there were so many types of costumes that it was very difficult to lay down what was decent The old regulation specifying shoul-der-to-thigh costumes had become ridiculous, he said. It would be left to beach attendants to decide if costume* worn complied with “the requirements of decency.”

Nude Bathing Pool A woman member, Cr. A. Hall, asked why Cape Town had no facilities for women to sunbath in the nude, as it has for men.

The Mayor, Mir A. H. Honikau, replied "Because women would never stay behind a concrete wall.”

The Mayor was referring to Braaff’s Pool, frequented by men who sunbathe in the nude, where there is a wall which serves as a screen. He described the pool as “the last place of our liberal tradition.” But all is not well at the pool, according to Cr. I. Ospovat. The men, he said, did not always remain dose to the wall, but walked about and did exercises in full view of the road and an eightstoney block of flats. People living in the flats did not have to stand on tables or used a binocular to watch them. The sunbathers should go elsewhere, or wear something—if only brief trunks. Cr. Tyers, defended the pool as one of the last places where men could enjoy the sun and nature. lit had been in existence for 50 years and had become virtually "a nonconforming right.” The wall, if necessary, would be heightened.

Cyclist Injured.—Mr Richard Jackson, of 45 Rodney street, New Brighton, suffered leg injuries when he was knocked from his cycle by a car at the corner of Linwood avenue and Worcester street at 10.30 a.m. yesterday. He was treated at the Christchurch Public Hospital and discharged.