A brief history of the sun

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Inspired by one of the best New Zealand summers on record, Alan Perrott tells a brief history of the sun, from the time Kiwis were banned from the beach, to women-only mornings at local swimming pools, and the Sunshine League’s ‘rules for sunbathing’

The Aztecs cut beating hearts from people's chests to stop the sun from going out. We put it in a bottle instead.

Now it's possible the Aztecs weren't chopping and slashing in the interests of maintaining a year-round tan, but both approaches have a common thread - we've always eyed the sun with suspicion.

Today it's all about understanding the dangers, which is a huge shift from the 70s when sun worshippers didn't so much lie under the sun as prostrate themselves before its magnificence. Those were the days before SPF and thick smears of fluorescent zinc, a time when our beaches stank of the coconut oil we slathered over ourselves to soak up every last ray that came our way.

It was all healthy fun in the great outdoors until we started to notice how perma-tans gradually turned us into ravaged bags of elbow skin, which would have been alarming enough without the accompanying increase in skin cancer rates.

Yet, only a few decades earlier, our beaches were virtually deserted. Whether it be moral uptightness, classism or racism, the settler folk of late-19th century New Zealand saw no upside at all to lying in the sun.

If that sounds curious, it was in accordance with beliefs that stretched all the way back to the pharoahs. According to Egyptian academic Dr Anthony Spalinger, the aristocracy almost never went out in the sun, a tan being a signifier of low class. They also never went into the water - it was dirty, smelly stuff and home to the dirty, smelly fisher folk.

So what changed?

For starters, a Prussian bodybuilder named Eugen Sandow visited New Zealand in 1902 to kick sand in our collective face. His tour kicked off in Auckland with five sold-out shows at the Town Hall and audiences so keen they sat through an accordion player and a short film of King Edward's coronation before the curtains opened to gasps as Sandow was revealed atop a revolving plinth in nothing but a posing pouch. After flexing various bits, he jumped down, pumped weights and performed some feats. It might sound a pole short of seedy, but he had cleverly branded his antics in terms of classical Greek and Roman art, which took the curse off proceedings.

And what does his show have to do with tanning? Well, the message he left was that it was high time this country went outside and got a little exercise. If New Zealand was modernising, the worry was that our newly discovered free time was making us lazy, a worry that turned to paranoia when young Kiwi after young Kiwi failed the physical test to enlist at the start of World War I.

Aucklanders in particular were highlighted as a community that needed sunshine to replace the energy being drained by city life. Plunket began recommending a gradually increasing regime of sun-baking for newborn babies to boost their vitamin D levels. If anyone had any doubts, a Swiss doctor, Auguste Rollier, had developed a sun treatment (heliotherapy) that was said to cure tuberculosis.

And so, says the University of Auckland's Dr Caroline Daly, swimming seemed the obvious solution, as it was an outdoor exercise. Unfortunately very few of us could manage more than a doggy paddle, a situation that wasn't helped by a general ban on hanging around at the beach. "Council bylaws banned 'loitering'," says Daly, "and they stuck around until the 20s. To further deter swimmers, bylaws also dictated what could and could not be worn at the beach.

"If you wanted to go for a swim you literally wore your raincoat to the beach, took it off, ran into the water, then ran out again and left."

But there was no stopping our growing love of water sport and the councils eventually got on board by laying tramlines to the beaches. Once in place, the newspapers began reporting crowds of up to 10,000 people descending on spots like Mission Bay and Cheltenham Beach. This also saw the start of the media's love of shark stories.

Still, if the beach was too dangerous, there was always the municipal swimming pool. To begin with you were only allowed to stay for about 30 minutes and any co-mingling of the genders was strictly forbidden: "Such an idea was morally outrageous and dangerous," says Daly. Instead, a few hours each morning were set aside as "women only".

Then again, staying dry might have been healthier. Daly's book Leisure & Fitness, Reshaping & Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900-1960 features a letter from one Mr Cornes to his local council. It seems he'd dived into Parnell Pool next to a dead body. The water had been so murky he hadn't seen it. In reply, the council promised to do more to keep the pool clear of "scum".

Obviously New Zealand hasn't always been an easy place to get a tan but, as Daly says, the popular view had been that no "right-minded" person would ever wish to have one and besides, we simply didn't know how to get one. This lack of understanding became a genuine problem - there were no sunscreens. So when scientists began pronouncing the health benefits of sunshine, over-enthusiastic sun-seekers ended up with serious burns. Even then, some doctors saw burns as part of the tanning process.

Never fear, a group of upright citizens banded together in Christchurch to set things to rights. The Sunshine League of New Zealand comprised an archbishop, a mayor, the minister of health, various doctors, and the odd eugenicist concerned about the decline of the British race. Together they came up with "Rules for Sunbathing," a set of varnished instructions that was soon on display at holiday spots around the country. Among their commonsense recommendations was: "Coconut oil or olive oil are good to rub into sensitive skins before sunbathing. More benefit is obtained by moving about and allowing the air to reach the skin."

Following their instructions was said to improve your resistance to bacteria, your levels of phosphorus, iodine and iron; your muscles, as well as your digestion and "joie de vivre".

This martial approach to sunbathing took a further step with the emergence of beach gymn-astics, with teams gathering on the sand to perform all manner of contortions, back flips and human pyramids. Surf life saving clubs were formed as well.

Now it's hard to say which came first, but our growing enthusiasm for wearing less was advancing, hand in hand with changes in fashion. Hemlines rose, backs disappeared and swimwear became less androgynous, meaning New Zealanders could finally show off their new brown muscles. We could ogle them too - short movies of young people enjoying themselves at the beach were shown in picture theatres where patrons were invited to vote for their favourite beach belle.

And in the ultimate convergence of helio-scientific and Greek values, organised nudism arrived during the 30s. It wasn't an easy start, says Daly - not only did the movement kick off in chilly Dunedin, but newspapers such as the Truth declared: "This extraordinary cult should be banned." Undeterred, the nudists claimed they were doing just as much to improve their bodies as any beach-goer or gym bunny. In response, sceptics asked why it needed to be done in groups.

And that's the thing. When we look at a sun-soaked beach now or lie down in a sunny garden, we think enjoyment, we think holiday, we think bliss. This has been a very recent development. Slip, slop, slap and wrap is simply the latest incarnation of our sun-fearing past; for the longest time enjoying the sun was considered a sinful path to the pits of hell.

But for others, well there was always a spare lump of obsidian handy to make sure the big yellow upstairs kept on shining.