NAPIER—THEN AND NOW

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 5, 2 November 1925, Page 41

NAPIER—THEN AND NOW

<%y FLORENCE INGLE BY

W*J years go—how many I will not let the grizzled locks of my old-maidenhood betray me by telling made a month’s stay at Napier, the delightful seaport of the Hawke’s Bay province. The recollection has always been a cherished one to me, tinged with a sadness of association that it would profit little to mention here. We are all too prone, in our reminiscing years, to let personal experiences intrude where they have no rightful belonging, are we not? But, apart from these, how well I recall the miles-long crescent sweep of breakers, booming in from the wide Pacific upon the dusky shingle. Behind one then, I remember, rose tier upon tier of bosomy hills dotted with only occasional houses that pleasantly contrasted with the sombre greenery of the dense native bush. These again were alternated with sheer cliffs rising dizzily above one, almost from the ocean front. The tang of the spray-salted breezes and the riotous spill of golden sunlight whipped a colour into my cheeks and filled my heart, too, with a splendid gladness. Truly that month’s holidaying in Napier—so many, many years ago—has ever been a red letter event in my not wholly uneventful life’s calendar. And now I have returned to Napier to live through, as quietly as may be, the evenings of my days, accounted somewhat of a recluse,

perhaps, but still the treasurer of many golden friendships. Napier has changed! Yet in its changing it has linked to itself other, rather than lost, any of its original

charms. True, it has become a city. It has boroughs and tramcars and harbour boards and movie shows and really quite stunning drapers’

shops. In the window of one of these I saw only this morning such a little dream of a hat. It was trimmed with . . . but la! la! la! there’s the old Eve breaking out again. I apolo-

gise. So to resume. Yes, we have all the paraphenalia that civic adolescence gathers to itself, yet, strange as it may seem, we are glad and we

are proud of it. I will tell you why! Bumbledom has no meaning here. We have no Bumbles in Napier. Public spirit is a living force with us. When we do wrangle, we wrangle among ourselves about such merely minor things as the dog tax and the Inner Harbour and reclamation dredging. To the outside world, and in all that goes to make a stranger welcome within our gates, we are in glad accord. Listen! Let me whisper you a secret. We have a Thirty Thousand Club! Every Napierite is a member of it —in spirit, if not in finance! The latter we are going to adjust one of these days, the former calls for no adjustment. And the achievements of the Thirty Thousand Club can be accepted as the measure of its aims.. Let me describe a typical Beach Day, conducted under its kindly aegis. Picture an inland school. Hundreds of school children gathered in the grounds and girls of all ages, right up from the tiny toddler to the sixth standard men and women in the nearing. Parents too — scores of them: young parents, old parents, grandparents— folk, sheep folk, township folkbut kindly, happy, expectant folk withal. Off they all go to the railway station. A special train, commissioned by the

Thirty Thousand Club with the economic connivance of the Railway Department, awaits. They all throng in. And just how they do throng in —what a merry noising, what a buzz of excitement. Then a shrill whistle, a rattle of mechanical un-der-gear. Puff! puff! puff! goes the engine. Puff! puff! puff! echo the kiddies, and they are away, bound for the El Dorado of their schoolday dreams. For, you see, the Thirty Thousand Club has imagination. In spite of its numerical title it has the Inward Vision! It knows the spell of the sea, the witchery of moving waters, and most of these little mites to whom it is a ministering and collective Angel will see the sea for the first time in their little inland lives. Napier to them will soon become the Dream made Manifest, the Perfeet Circle of which their happenings before have been but the Broken Arc. “Napier!” the guards call out. What a waste of Departmental breath! As well label the sunlight or catalogue the dream! Singing, tumbling, shouting, every expression of ecstatic youth is heard. And off goes the merry troupe to the Ocean Front, the Mecca of its sweet imaginings. But what are the Thirty Thousand Club doing all this while? Maybe you imagine them, standing thirty thousand strong in serried row, posing for the camera man? Don’t be Uncle Willie, as the kiddies

say. Why, for the nonce, they are just kiddies themselves. They hand out wooden spades and buckets to the wee folk. Some stand behind great cans of milk for free distribution to all who require refreshment, Others paddle with the youngsters in the municipal paddling pond, to see that they come to no hurt. Others again supervise the bathing in the City Baths or in the open surf, More still teach the young idea how to shoot the chute or stride the seesaw or manipulate the many contraptions provided by the Civic Pathers for the little people’s pleasure, What a day in the youngsters’ lives. Can’t you just imagine it. Think that as many as fifteen hundred school children have been catered for in one day, and that the aggregate in one season reached over five thousand. From as far away as Pahiatua they have come to the Guest Beach of Napier—and left there the healthier, happier and sweeter because of it. That is only one activity of the Thirty Thousand Club of Napier, To other cities situated somewhat as they, I have only one message: “Go thou and do likewise!” To the carping critic who would say “Where does the profit come in” let me refer him in advance to the Secretary of the Thirty Thousand Club at Napier. It pays in drawing trade to the city, adequately—-but enormously, to what is far, far more important, in its meed of love and loving-kindness.