HERITAGE

The crusade to induce New Zealanders to make use of sunlight and fresh air and promote better community health began in Christchurch in 1931. The Sunlight League’s aims focused on the prevention of disease and maintenance of good health based on the benefits of the sun. Sub-committees furthered these aims in the areas of dental hygiene, smoke abatement, education, physical training, and heliotherapy. The camping subcommittee organised health camps for girls from state schools chosen from families unable to afford holidays. The first camp was at Pleasant Point, where “four delicate children from Christchurch” spent their September holiday. In an effort to illustrate the value of sunlight to healthy living and physical fitness, the Sunshine League’s emblem featured Māui snaring the sun. Tikanga was adopted for running the camps, and the children’s names were translated into Māori. The sale of Health Stamps helped to fund these camps that grew in number throughout the mid-1930s. Larger groups of girls, and eventually boys, enjoyed month-long camps to Okains, Pigeon, and Charteris Bays, Wainui, South Brighton, Tipapa, and Kaikoura. Assisted by the generous donations from local hosts, the children enjoyed outdoor pursuits, ate ‘wholesome’ food and slept in huts. The camps were a great success. Doctors examined the children on their return home and described them as “sturdier”, “sunbrowned, their posture greatly improved and their vitality increased”. The League aimed to make “children better citizens... improve health and give the child happiness; encourage appreciation of country life, love of beauty, and the ideals of health, work and service to others”. Their “Rules for Sunbathing” recommended starting with five to 10 minutes each day, building up to two to three hours. Coconut and olive oil should be rubbed into the skin “before sunbathing”.

Speaking at the Sunlight League’s inaugural meeting in 1931, Archbishop Julius claimed that a tabby cat knew more about bringing up kittens than some mothers knew about rearing their children. The League’s objectives were also “to educate people in the knowledge of the laws of heredity, the importance of civic worth and racial value and by the study of eugenics to exchange racial deterioration for racial improvement”.

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