HOW DO YOU SPEND A SUNNY WEEK-END?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 490, 20 October 1928, Page 24

HOW DO YOU SPEND A SUNNY WEEK-END?

PROMINENT AUCKLANDERS GIVE THEIR “SATURDAY TO MONDAY” PROGRAMME TO SUN READERS . . .

[K main idea behind “week-ending” seems to be to take a “let-up” from the business of the week, so that one may return to desk and

bench refreshed and feager for another tussle with the pffairs of business. But does Auckland feel a great appetite for work after the weekly holiday, or does it come back to the city with an acute attack of that Monday feeling and a desire to recuperate from the week-end? Let the Aucklanders answer for themselves. The “week-end” once had a shady Association; it was a form of dissipation favoured by those an American calls “the assiduously idle rich.” Decent people frowned on weekenders. But now it has outlived a doubtful past and become a popular institution. People prominent in the city here give the methods they adopt to forget their troubles. Sun-worshippers and outdoor enthusiasts are plentiful. One of the first approached was the Mayor, Mr. George Baildon. “Will you tell me how you spend your week-end?” asked the reporter. “No chance!” said the Mayor, Inerrily. Several business men shied at the question. Light exercise which does not weary one is the ideal week-end of Mr. H. P. Kissling, general manager of the New Zealand Insurance Co. He plays a little golf or a little tennis.. “Take it easy,” he says to the man who is no longer slim and athletic. For the young he prescribes violent exercise, faying that it is essential to their Well-being. Better to play something badly than to be an excellent onlooker. is his advice. TRIES TO FORGET "I try to forget all about the City Council and the trams, and the transport problems, from mid-day on Saturday until Monday morning," confesses Mr. J. A. C. Allum. “But sometimes I am not allowed to.” He likes a quiet leisure in his weekend. “I try to spend it at home,” he says, “and I divide the time between the two pastimes of which I am very fond—reading and walking.” Sir George Fowlds said: “On Saturday I am supposed to be at the openings of two bowling clubs of which I am the patron. Then there always seem to be buildings to open or institutions to take an interest in, so that I have no time to follow a course of recreation. Once upon a time 1 played golf and bowls, but my time has been so occupied that I have had no practice to keep in form, and there is little pleasure in games unless you are in form.” Quiet Sundays are Sir George's preference. After morning church he spends the rest of the day in receiving visits from his family or in visiting them. He firmly believes in the benefit of open air and exercise to bring one back fit and fresh on Mondays. A PLEASANT DOMAIN An ideal week-end has been discovered by Mr. Robert Burns, who gets right away from the city and foes to his twenty acres at Ho wick.

A big variety of pastimes opens up immediately. If he feels energetic he may do some weeding in his garden or some pruning in the orchard. He may stroll through the pleasant bush lands which slope down to the beach aud have a bathe. A tennis court is there, and horses, so that he may go riding. A lover of the open air, he keeps himself fit in this pleasant domain, lapped by the blue Waitemata and seemingly just a stone’s throw from stately Rangitoto. Not a suggestion of business intrudes Itself there. Another devotee of the quiet home week-end Is Mr. James Boddie, chairman of directors of the Farmers’ Trading Company. “I like it as peaceful as possible, so that I may do some interesting reading,” he says, “now that my strenuous days are over.” MR. SCHMIDT'S “BLASTING” Blasting is one of the favourite occupations of Mr. Harold Schmidt. He does not do this from annoyance but because he has a rocky section out of town and he wants, one day, to have it laid out in tennis courts and rockeries. Nothing is too strenuous for him. Bowls and even tennis have not enough concentrated exercise in them to keep him in fettle. When he is not breaking up his rocks, he takes his launch to his farm up the harbour and sets to work on the kitchen garden, or nets fish or makes a landing stage or “does some boring here and there for deeper strata metal.” On Monday morning he is back; again with a new appetite for business. One of the unfortunates who find that an accumulation of work is inclined to hang over the sunshine of the week-end is Dr. E. P. Neale, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. On Saturday he says he finds he has to clear up arrears of work ahd perhaps solve a few problems in economics, but he usually finds time* to do an hour’s gardening. On Sunday morning he takes the children for a walk and in the afternoon he runs his family out for a blow in the car, the beach being the usual objective in the summer—that is, if the accumulation of work has not spread over as far as Sunday. s FARM AND SEA Farming and boating are the enthusiams of Mr. Alfred Court, of John Court, Ltd., and they make his weekends slip by. In the coming one, for instance, he is going up to his famous

j Friesian farm at Helensville. He will hit a ball round his golf links (he denies that he plays golf) and get into the farming atmosphere with talk of his pedigree stock. In the summer, of course, he will be at the helm of the Ruamana again, his big launch, which made a trip round New Zealand. Her ] two 75 h.p. engines are to be replaced | this season with two 150 h.p. Redwings. When he gets away for the week-end cruise with its ddlights of j fishing and swimming, he will soo_i be a rich mahogany

again. The Ruamana’s crew are sun worshippers. Solid, sound exercise is the rule of Mr. Albert Spencer, president of the Employers’ Association. He gets right away from the city in his launch, explores the coast line, lands at some spot, runs over the hills bareheaded, and makes the best of the sunshine. As an all er n a five he does some strenuous work at his home on the water-

front, putting down concrete work, gardening, building rockeries. Violent exercise in the open air and two meals a day comprise his advice to the man who wants to live long and keep healthy. Every minute of his weekend is employed, he says, in work or exercise to keep him in perfect trim. He has no sympathy with the onlooker at sports; every man ought to be doing something. Mr. A. Burns, chairman of the Auckland Education Board, said he certainly believed in recreation over the week-end. “What form of recreation?” asked the reporter. “Gardening,” said Mr. Burns. “Do you garden on Sundays?” persisted the Pressman. “Yon cannot ask me that. I am a good Presbyterian,” said he. Sir Benjamin Fuller, who though not an Aucklander, is frequently here, never has a Saturday free because of the “show business.” But he makes up for it on Sunday. He is an apostle of the rest creed. Frankly, he will tell you, that he does nothing on Sundays. “I spend them loafing,” he says. “I absolutely-relax, and the most strenuous thing I do is to wander round about Point Piper in Sydney.” Just the wildest and most inaccessible place he can drive a car to is where Mr. Tom O’Brien, of O’Brien’s Theatres, likes to take his family for a week-end of sun, sand and surf. Piha is one of his favourite drives, for he enjoys the thrill of the incline down to the beach. He likes to forget for a day that there are any things in the world like projecting machines, and “full house” signs and box offices and “super-attractions.” AND MARIGOLD SAYS—“Oh I have just a TOO lovely time in the week-ends,” said Marigold, the office nymph. “Saturday is a bit of a rush, especially if the old stick in the office keeps me back till 11.30, aud there’s no time for a new marcelle. But I dash home to put the finishing touches to the sweetest frock and to have a clean up. Then off to the cabaret, dance all night and have supper and things. Breakfast in bed, of course, but up quite early about 11.30. And then for a swim and a sun-bake, but not too much sun—it is so hard on the complexion. There is sure to be a | party on Sunday night—let’s hope it’s gay. Monday? Oh don’t remind me 1 of prison!”