Youngsters' health camp recalled

Built as a seaside tea kiosk in 1912 at Castlecliff, the building was moved and became the Gonville sanatorium in the 1930s. It has also been the home of the Braves softball club.

Alan Bowater, formerly of Raetihi, called in to the Chronicle office the other day to say it was 75 years since a health camp for children was set up in Wanganui.

Alan was one of the children sent to the camp, because "I was a bit small, I guess".

The camp has not been around for many years but Alan is interested to know if anyone else remembers it.

He's done a bit of research. The camp was set up on "13.5 acres of land on the corner of Puriri and Rimu streets on land donated by the Hope-Gibbons family".

Alan remembers Mr and Mrs Lethbridge also proved "great generosity", and that the building that had been a tea kiosk at Castlecliff beach was moved on to the site with funds from the Rotary Club and Health Camp Trustees. It's now the clubrooms of the Braves softball club.

Elizabeth Gunn, the medical officer of health for the district in the 1920s and 30s, was the driving force behind getting children who were suffering from malnutrition and needed "good food, regular hours and open-air holidays", into camps.

It was known as the Gonville Health Camp, and many of the children who went had been born during the depression.

Dr Gunn visited many of the Wanganui area schools and checked children over, suggesting to parents the ones who would benefit from the opportunity.

"Several from the Raetihi area were sent and I was one of those. We were aged 7 and 8 years old and the term was for six weeks - quite an overwhelming experience at that age," Alan said.

The camp involved regular hours for meals, with fresh vegetables sent in by local supporters, schooling, exercise and sunbathing, though everyone wore sunhats.

"Though there had been an earlier intake of children, we were there at the 'official' opening attended by Prime Minister Peter Fraser in May 1938.

"I was given the privilege of presenting a bouquet to Mrs Lethbridge and my Raetihi mate Noel Harris presented one to the matron."

The camp was closed in 1941 through a lack of funds and different ideas about its future, Alan said.

Now 83, Alan lives in Wanganui. He has one former Raetihi friend who was at the camp, Merton Robinson, who now lives in a retirement village at Kamo, and is keen to hear of any other recollections.