Guard Your Teeth - New Zealand Health Poster - 1940s

NZ Health poster, 1940s

And it wouldn't hurt you to obtain a mouth guard to protect your teeth if you are going to play contact sports or engage in extreme sports like walking through the centre of town in the wee hours on a Sunday morning...

Want That Milk In A Bucket? New Zealand Health Poster - 1940s

NZ Health Poster, 1940s

Would you like that in a big bucket? How about a straw? Grow big bovine molars & you'll be able to chew your way through any pasture for years to come. No need for fancy salads.

Chew Hard - New Zealand Health Poster - 1940s

NZ Department of Health Poster, 1940s

Chew hard, by all means, but gnawing on a bone like Keith might induce cracking & chipping of your teeth as well as the odd low growl, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

New Zealand Apples - Patriotic Poster - circa 1930s

New Zealand Apples - Patriotic Poster - circa 1930s

Look, I still don't think you've got the picture: eat more apples, it's the patriotic thing to do. Now be a good Kiwi and eat up! Indeed, it's the right British thing to do! 'nother, apple?!

Gravenstein Apples, The Dessert Apple - Poster - circa 1930s

Gravenstein Apples, The Dessert Apple - Poster - circa 1930s

How about a nice apple pie for pudding? You work on making the pastry, I'll peel, slice and cook the apples.

Buy Your Apples By the Case - Poster - circa 1930s

Buy Your Apples By the Case - Poster - circa 1930s

 

Look with all the productivity gains made by orchardists and the drop in prices caused by the Great Slump, you need to step up and buy a case of apples. Ask your stationmaster at the local railway station how to order.

Calendar Boy - Arthur Yates & Co Calendar Cover 1948

 Arthur Yates & Co Calendar Cover 1948

 

In an earlier age when most households still relied on home grown fruit and vegetables for a sizable share of their annual food, it was all hands to the garden both out of economic necessity and as social activity. Children were socialized in the arts of plant husbandry - soil preparation, planting, fertilising, watering, weeding, harvesting and the like. Post harvest it was about storing and preserving - bottling, making jam, and the like. If little boys didn't get trained in the kitchen arts in those days they at least got to taste samples and the naturally curious learned enough so they could years later work out how mum used to make all those things.

This old bird recalls empty seed packets of Arthur Yates & Co pierced by pieces of kindling wood at the end of planted rows marking where particular vegetables had been planted. In my neck of the veggie garden between the two apple trees, I remember planting sweet corn because that was something dad didn't plant as well as peas, radishes, and a few other things, expanding to green and chili peppers in later years. And since we lived within earshot of Lancaster Park in Christchurch, I can remember being in the garden and dad, upon hearing a large cheer from the crowd at the Park, declaring: Canterbury must have scored!

Now try to get most youngsters today - beyond the age of the lad pictured above - to tear themselves away from their video games or the mall to get outdoors for awhile let alone into the garden.

Methinks something was lost. And, please, don't try to get me all cheered up by the local food movement, farmers' markets shenanigans and all that. It still has a long, long way to go. Maybe too long a way with not so very much long term commitment from enough people. But you've got to hope - and take action, right?

What did your garden grow?

Cattle Droving, South Westland - Travel poster - circa 1930s

 

 Travel poster, Cattle Droving, South Westland, artist Marcus King, circa 1930s

Cattle droving on a fine South Westland day as the Herefords cross a frigid, glacial-fed river.

No, Jayne: not South West Island which would be Tasmania, right? And we'll have none of yer Drover's Run, McLeod's Daughters stuff on this side of the Tazzie, thank you very much! ;)

TEAL Flying Boat - Mosgiel Woollen MIlls ad, 1939

 

 Mosgiel Woolen Mills advertisement,  New Zealand Railways magazine, July 1 1939

While not a travel poster, the above magazine ad for Mosgiel knitwear seeks to make the connection between the state of the art TEAL flying boat of 1939 and the stylish woollen knitwear.

The intellectual property lawyer within Kuaka wonders if Mosgiel properly arranged licensing of the TEAL flying boat image and HMV's (His Master's Voice") intellectual property - the close reference to "His Master's Knitwear". Methinks, probably not. Just a little borrowing. Today there'd be a posse of lawyers swarming all over this ad cranking up the billable hours. 

Much pleasanter to gaze reflectively out over the harbour thinking of the TEAL flying boat making a landing in Evan's Bay, Wellington... like this view:

TEAL flying boat Aotearoa landing in Wellington Harbour bringing Brtiish and Australian representatives to the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, 19 January 1940.

Rotorua - New Zealand's Thermal Wonderland - Travel Poster, 1930s

Rotorua and a view of the hot springs baths in New Zealand's Thermal Wonderland. Travel poster.

Rotorua, the destination for generations of tourists over 130 or more years. A view of the bath house and the hot spring pool at Rotorua. Don't worry about the rotten egg smell from the sulphur emitted into the air by the thermal springs in and around Rotorua. You won't notice it at all after a few days...

Queenstown - New Zealand Railways Travel Poster, 1930s

Queenstown, New Zealand Railways travel poster, 1930s

Queenstown in the southern lakes district of the South Island. Why not take a scenic trip by train & Railways motor (bus)?

Nowadays, the extreme sport, winter sport, night club crowd jet in or tour by air conditioned luxury coach. The hardy types cycle in across the dry landscape in summertime.

New Zealand Railways Travel Poster - Tourist Tickets - 1923

New Zealand Railways Travel Poster, 1923.

Perhaps you should buy a tourist ticket when you tour New Zealand. 

These days you may need to jump on a Kiwi Rail freight or coal train to make some connections (reduced rates apply). Or ride a bike trail where the rail bed used to be.

The Daylight Express - New Zealand Railways travel poster, 1950s

The Daylight Limited, New Zealand Railways travel poster, 1950s.

Why not ride the Daylight Limited on the North Island Main Trunk Line between Wellington and Auckland? Make a (long, bum-crunching) day of it!

Travel by Steam Train - New Zealand Railways Travel Posters, 1940s

 

New Zealand Railways travel poster, late 1940s

So how will you get to Caroline Bay, Timaru for your summer holidays? Why by steam locomotive express of course. Tripping by train may have a different meaning in the modern era, remember the Trainspotting move of the 1990s?

 

New Zealand Railways travel poster for the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, Wellington, 1939-40.

And now it's February (1940), you can still get cheap fares to travel to the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in Wellington where you can see the marvellous achievements of our nation over the past 100 years - and catch a rollercoaster or two.

Caroline Bay, Timaru, New Zealand - Travel Poster Art, 1930s

 

Caroline Bay, Timaru, New Zealand travel poster, 1936-1937

Where I'd rather be right now...

Though apparently this summer has been cool & cloudy in Canterbury, so these lyrics may be apt:

"Goodbye Caroline Skies

Now my friends are gone

This bay has washed away 

And so's the fun."

Caroline Skies, The Exponents.

Ah, the end of summer, a melancholic time... so enjoy the summer moment when it comes.

Flyger Funeral Furnishers - "Prices to Suit All Classes" - Cuba Street Wellington, 1905

 J Flyger & Co, Funeral Furnishers and Embalmers, advertisement in "The Maori and Pakeha Carnival, Vivian Street Citadel". Music Programme, page13, 1905. Alexander Turnbull Library.

As often happens, while researching other matters my interest was piqued by this ad for Flyger's funeral services in a music programme.

If Tonking's linseed emulsion failed to cure your cough in 1905 - see top banner ad - you could apparently count on Mr Flyger and his flying team of horses to furnish you a good send-off. Flyger it seems was an equal opportunity undertaker, advertising he had "prices to suit all classes".

Cheery stuff as you browsed the music programme during intermission. Death, as folks well knew in 1905, is always with you.

On the Wagon...

 

Truck advertising Australian Yalumba Wines & Port, Wanganui region. 

Photograph taken by Frank J Denton, circa 1920s  

Alexander Turnbull Library

And came home on the wine wagon.... Which explains the lapse in blog posts this week (?).

Speights - Southern Brew - New Zealand

Speight's Brewery was established in 1876 in Dunedin, Otago. It is owned by Lion Nathans today and doesn't actually brew beer in the South anymore. Bottle and can products are brewed further north in Auckland and Christchurch.

That doesn't stop corporate myth-makers creating "The Southern Man" in a series of TV ads, a rugged sheep musterer used to the loneliness of the high country, a male of few words - and fewer tastes - who sparingly offers encouragement with a "good on yer mate":

Good on yer mate! cheers.