How to Use the Parks
NvHEN the Sunlight League was formed in May, 1924, it obtained permission to use Kenwood- then just saved from the builders, but not open to the public—for the purpose of a demonstration of the value of English sunlight. We knew about Alpine sunlight, and indeed the Marquis of Graham—now the Duke of Montrose our first treasurer, hoped to establish, through the League, a sanatorium for English children in Leysin.
But immeasurably better was the prospect that English sunlight would prove good enough for English children ; and it did. For three months during that summer we sun-bathed some three dozen children up there, well out of London smoke, which was, of course, not very serious at that time of year. A medical committee watched and reported on the children and the results were admirable. They were discussed, with photographs, in the first number of Sunlight, and the hope was that this example would be followed on a large scale all over the country.
One or two points may be noted about that demon- stration, which I think we may now fairly begin to regard as historic. It was very inexpensive. We provided bathing slips, some waterproof sheets which had been left over from the War, soft white headgear, and some hurdles which proved superfluous. The children came from schools for the physically defective, and from hospitals which had just discharged them. Someone advised me to charter several chars-à-bancs and drive children from Whitechapel to Kenwood as a demonstration. That would have been nonsense. We took the children from sources as near as possible to Kenwood. Even so, their tram fares were serious enough for our slender resources.
But, if you had money to burn you should still provide your sun-bathing as near as possible to the children's homes. Transport, apart from cost, which is in practice important, involves time and fatigue and anxiety and risk. Hence, places for sun-bathing should be as numerous as possible, and should be chosen for their propinquity to the crowded areas which they serve. This is exactly the opposite of the principle involved in providing radium centres for the treatment of cancer. These should be as few as possible, for important reasons which may be discussed on another occasion. But centres where children and others--but this is most important for children—are to get the two or, if possible, three kinds of bath—" Baths of water are good, baths of air are better, baths of light are best "—should be as numerous as possible, if they are to serve best those who need them most.
After Kenwood and its success, the Sunlight League, of course, approached the First Commissioner of Works, but without avail. Last July, however, we tried again, and met, from Mr. George Lansbury, a very different kind of reception, as everybody knows. We spoke most about Hyde Park and the Serpentine, where water can be added to air and light, and where the extra dose of ultra-violet light reflected from the water—as from Alpine snow in the winter—is all to the good. Sir Richard Paget submitted a scheme for an archi- tectural colonnade, and he has since worked upon this with Professor Patrick Abercrombie, of the University of Liverpool, so that we shall have something definite to submit to the experts of the Office of Works. Meanwhile, critics who fear that we propose to "disfigure the Serpentine" should go for themselves to see how now we disfigure the ornamental lake of the great park of our metropolis—with utterly hideous hoardings, which, besides being as ugly as possible, are also as useless, for they do not provide one inch of overhead cover against the vagaries of our climate.
But we did not talk only about Hyde Park, and everyone knows that Mr. Lansbury has since visited a very large number of areas under his control, large and small, famous and unknown, and has considered the possibilities of each. The spectacular is right in Hyde Park, as an object-lesson and in order to show that the prestige of no park is too illustrious to forbid its use in nourishing the only real wealth of nations ; but the principle to apply is the provision for every child's needs as near as possible to the child's home.
During the three months since we went to Mr. Lansbury I have been looking at the new places which are springing up all over Switzerland. I have not met any fact so striking and instructive as that recorded by "J," in the Spectator a few weeks ago—that in Vienna he found twenty free open-air bathing places for children in the public parks, their cost being defrayed from the profits on the places provided for adults.
But, as in Austria and Germany, so in Switzerland, this open-air movement gathers momentum, and vhen Mr. Lansbury has done all that the Sunlight League asked him, and . more, we shall still only be following after the example of many other nations. On Lac Leman there are four new plages, opened within about a year, at Ouchy-Lausanne, Vevey and Montreux on the Swiss shore, and at Evian-les-Bains, in French territory. On Lake Maggiore, there is not only the big lido at Locarno, with others, a mile or two away, at Aseona and Navegna, but, since I was there last year, a new enclosure called ICindererholungsheim : Casa di bum per Bambini. At Lucerne is an enormous new Stra.ndbad, open for the first time this summer, and yet another, only a mile or two away, at Weggis.
Nearly all these are bathing places, of the familiar type, for adults and children. But here I wish to point out that this is not the only way in which to use the parks, large or small.
For instance, on Lac Leman, serving Lausanne, are not only the new plage, and the old one, but also a stretch of beach reserved during every August and September for the school children during their holidays, and also another enclosure which, on visiting, now several years ago, I found to be none other than the ideal day nursery, for the care of children whose parents are compelled to work away from their homes during the day. Elsewhere, further along the shore of the same lake, are schools- in the sun, on the lovely pattern of that established by Professor Rollier, as he now is, at Leysin in 1910. Many years ago, passing Hyde Park Corner with that great pioneer, I listened to his comment on the use of St. George's Hospital for treatment, whilst all the resources of Hyde Park were wasted ; though we all know that many cases could be cured there which can nowhere be cured behind bricks. The time has come, I sub- mit, when ill people, and especially children, should be treated—yes, even in Hyde Park—in suitable enclosures which can be beautifully screened by the art of the gardeners.
The range is wide : bathing and recreation places, with music and dancing, I hope ; schools and nursery schools ; day nurseries ; clinics ; to which may be added more provision for games, such as we hope to see soon opposite Knightsbridge Barracks. - All this we should have. For its value to be realized we must clean our skies. Coal smoke spoils and ruins everything. We must restore to our cities that natural climate which recent records show to be vastly better than we used to suppose, and then we must use it to the full for our lives. The knife and bottle cult of the past is unworthy of our present knowledge, which entitles us to essay nothing less than creative hygiene, wherein we may become partakers in the divine nature.
CRUSADER.
Previous page
