A summer jetty

Thinking of a cool vacation near water.

Tom: We used to spend summers at the lake.

Mary: A cabin or a tent?

Summer 1956

Tom: Both. The cabin was small and the kids slept in a tent. A heavy canvas one, it took ages to set up.

Mary: Not like the modern ones which pop up almost as easily as an umbrella. Well almost. It was near the water?

Tom: Ten meters back from it. A jetty jutted into the water, an old Frostbite tied up. That jetty, it was a place of magic, a place of mischief. You never knew if the fish would bite and there was a small boy always lurking to push people into the water.

__________

Voice-over

Summer lakes lure us to cool pools. Especially from 35 degree city swelters. Better yet if there is jetty with a boat tied to it. Something about messing about in boats, as the vole said to the mole in Wind in the Willows.

Then and now (1)

The interviewer is planning to interview an architect (GKN) about his holiday house. A draft scenario for the opening voiceover accompanying photo stills:

...

GKN: For more than fifty years, beginning in 1956, the family has been coming to Lake Rotoiti for holidays, especially in the summers. It all started in 1956, staying in a boatshed with the Macky family, in 1959, we camped on the lake shore on Derek van Asch’s property where I designed a house for him. By 1960, I had bought a lakeside property and in 1961, put up a cabin close to the water.

Interviewer: This is a New Zealand tradition, is it, this getting away at holidays, to a retreat near the sea or a river or a lake, and perhaps messing about in boats?

GKN: Very much so. Many of these retreats are rather Heath Robinson affairs, jerry built, reflecting the “do it yourself”culture.

Interviewer: But the cabin you put up seems to have lasted pretty well. Was it designed as a more permanent residence?

GKN: Not at all. I had started a low cost prefabricated housing project in the early 1950s, called Solwood, affordable and at the same time, with a minimalist approach to achieve a clean design. The cabin was also built of prefabricated timber panels. The wood was matai, tongue and grooved. The timber was rough sawn on the outside and dressed on the inside to achieve a smooth timber interior. The boards were held together with a hardboard tongue slotted into grooves sawn into the edges of the 3 inch matai boards.

Interviewer: The cabin was originally a simple one room retreat?

GKN: With a back verandah for extra sleeping, an outside toilet, a long drop.

Interviewer: No electricity?

GKN: There was a kerosene cooker and kerosene lamps. Water came off the roof into a tank behind the house.

...