26-06-2020, 08:30 AM
Picnics like that seem to have faded from the scene. Public spaces have the car park area segregated and are too much used to picnic on, and use of any private area except in the backblocks would have the owner summoned by cell phone by some busy body. My father had a colleague with a trucked 1924 Willys Knight 4 on which he conveyed his 7 children and we used to picnic with them much as the photo, although with a tarpaulin as tablecloth. My father used to unbolt the Seven front seats for comfort. And the running boards served as tables. Into the 1950s it was common for groups to have a picnic evening tea on the miles of drivable beaches but with the advent of tv everyone flocked home and the tradition died. In the late 1940s on 200 mile trips in the Seven to visit grandparents we would stop for a cuppa on the side of the road. Traffic was sparse, few trucks and no big ones, speeds slow if the road had corners, the roadway occupied little of the total width, and not at all unpleasant. As mentioned some time ago many families used Thermettes, a water jacketted heater which burned sticks but my plumber father favoured a Primus as he was familiar with the pyrotechnics.
(NZ was noted for the very old cars kept in use. Nearly everyone needed one and new were expensive and hard to get)
(NZ was noted for the very old cars kept in use. Nearly everyone needed one and new were expensive and hard to get)