The New Brighton Residents Association went back into the time machine following the response from our last post of what the 1970s looked like in our Coastal paradise. This time we dialed up sixty to seventy years ago and came out blinking in the 1950s and early 60s.
Here is a snapshot of what we found once I stopped laughing at my companion’s blouse, and narrow billowy skirt with puff sleeves and saw my attire of stove pipe trousers, suede shows and brycreemed slicked back hair reflected in the shop window.
This was a time when New Brighton was the only place in New Zealand where shops were allowed to open on Saturdays (closed one day during week) and by the 1960s, was Christchurch’s only shopping centre open into the weekend
It was all go for the retailers and people who worked all week to get to the shops and the bank, as a result business thrived prompting big city stores like Beaths to open branches here with queues outside the bank Saturday morning.
A fierce battle raged for years as many other retailers, unions and others attempted to overturn part of the legislation claiming, “allowing New Brighton to trade as a holiday resort under the Act”, was a stretch of imagination. This became a political issue and echoed around Parliament and politicians.
The 50’s witnessed the transformation from the old beach bach suburb as family homes spread south down the Brighton Spit. North of New Brighton. The concept of “are you married or do you have a crib in New Brighton” used by city-dwellers at week-ends (not just for family occasions), was changing into conventional residential suburb on as transport links improved (you can see 1960 house prices in the images below) .
For instance, North Beach had its own tram and trolley bus lines into the city until 1956 when diesel busses and private cars began to take over and within ten years vehicles were everywhere.
Until after the middle of the 1950s, ‘eating out’ was largely confined to patronage of hotel dining rooms, the tea rooms of the large department stores. Change was in the air as ‘milk bars’ came into the mix and small private restaurants/cafes began opening.
A Cafe across from the beach had an arcade of machines filled with teenagers downing shakes, and tearooms for those more inclined to tea and small sandwiches with cake.
A day out was ice cream on the beach, people applying a coating of coconut oil roasting themselves in the sun or a stroll along the old wooden pier coming to the end of its nearly seventy year life (1965).
The potential loss of the pier caused great consternation amongst locals and many got on to social media to protest, effectively a letter in 1960 you had to write without spelling mistakes and post at your cost to the editor of the city newspaper with no guarantees it would be published with a valid name and address attached.
Despite these changes to having fun and getting around, parts of our modern infrastructure continued to lag for instance the extension of sewers in the immediate post-war years failed to keep up with the rapid growth of new suburbs on the fringes of the city and the collection of night-soil pooze & weeze), a feature of the city’s sewage disposal system since the for a hundred years (much of it dumped in dunes north of New Brighton).
New Brighton and South Brighton were the last significant areas to be served by sewers and night-soil collection continued until the 1960s.
The reliance on wood and coal open fires for domestic heating gave Christchurch a serious air pollution problem peaking in the 1970s. Pollutants accumulated in cold air trapped below a layer of warmer air against the flanks of the Port Hills. New Brighton escaped the worst of it and the fresh ocean easterly was a boon to our health while westies coughed their lungs out..
For those of the 2023 generation attuned to cell “phones” 24 hours a day and enlarged thumbs (genetic evolution), many 1960s coastal residents had no phones at all apart from trying to find a red public telephone to make a call. If the recipient wasn’t home you hoped like hell the phone unit would give your money back.
Therefore once again the beach suburb struggled to get all the line connections needed and many residents faced a wait of years to get one and usually had to share with another family in the street..
There were many-many more flashes of the 50s & 60s New Brighton as we stepped back into the time machine, but we had too much information already and the mineral oil in the brylcreem sweated into my eyes and created double vision..