That Post-war Home

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 328, 5 October 1945, Page 9

That Post-war Home

ANY listeners must have sat enraptured as Eric Miller, A,R.1.B.A,, unrolled in his talk from 4YA a glorious panorama containing pictures of every- +

thing the average home lover could wish. "House or Home?" was the title of the talk. Beginning in a mild way with the reasonable argument that any hovel may become a home given sufficient leisure and the desire to use it to best advantage, Mr. Miller had almost lulled me into a state of happy acceptance of the house I already possess, draughts, borer, and all. Then he suggested some ways in which a house could be turned into a home (garden, space for hobbies, privacy for each member of the family, and so on). Shortly it became apparent that no mere flat or four-roomed house would\be, suitable; several houses must be knocked into one and a basement and attic added, the’ garden transformed from a_ potato patch into a landscape including fishpond and facilities for a barbecue, And the last succulent morse] on Mr. Miller’s proffered dish-that "cosy corner" with its luxurious couches, its built-in bookcases, its panoramic windows, which was to. be situated at the back, mind you, of the living-room fireplace, the latter | standing plumb in the middle of the room!-that last golden’ dream of the intellectual sybarite was surely offered by Mr. Miller as a hint that we had better just forget about the whole thing till the basic wage rises to something like two thousand a year.