Sandra Paterson: Charmed by bit of rough

Forgive me for not talking politics. Last weekend was spent at a bach up north and I'm still in holiday mode. Well, as much as a coiled spring can be in holiday mode, which is not a lot.

Most people, for example, would go on holiday and forget about work entirely. Not me. Even before bacon and eggs on the Saturday morning, I'd found something to write about.

I had woken early, you see, and gone for a walk along Lang's Beach. It is a beautiful spot, near Waipu Cove, north of Auckland, with pohutukawa fringing the foreshore and three streams ribboning across the sand.

We were staying in a friend's bach, a real bach, made of fibrolite, with faded furnishings, mismatched cutlery and sand between the floorboards. Exactly how I like it.

But by the time I reached the end of the bay, I decided real baches were in danger of disappearing. At the southern end of the beach, there was barely a piece of fibrolite or a board and batten to be seen. "Holiday homes" is what you call them these days. But holiday mansions would be a better description. Huge, million-dollar, manicured atrocities.

Well, okay, atrocities is a bit strong. Many of them were perfectly fine houses - for Remuera or Howick. But they seemed so wrong in a sleepy little beach settlement, where generations of families have been coming to get away from it all.

Not that I am anti-development. It is perfectly logical, when coastal properties are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars, that those who can afford them are likely to bowl any rinky-dink dwellings and build something better.

And no doubt as time passes, and as New Zealand becomes even more of a wonderfully multi-ethnic melting pot, 1950s-style beach architecture will become less relevant every year.

But it is still sad. Because the bach, to me, says something unique about who we are and where we have come from. It encapsulates perfectly the rugged, individual kind of country Split Enz used to sing about. Although humble, it is part of our heritage - and just as important as a pa site, a shell midden or a stately old Ponsonby villa.

Of course it is sometimes difficult to explain exactly what a bach is, especially to overseas visitors, who no doubt wonder what on earth some of us see in these odd little huts.

I like how Wellington author and photographer Paul Thompson defines it - by the "feel".

"By my method, most baches are places I wouldn't mind spending several summer weeks in," he wrote in his book The Bach. "A porch, a view, a sea or mountain breeze, combined with basic washing and cooking facilities, an escape to paradise."

Not everyone feels the same way. I freely admit to being something of a retro chick - affectionately mocked by certain friends for my fondness for junk shops and old cars, funny old tea trolleys and antique lamps. And I live in what used to be a bach so I'm more than slightly biased.

My home is partially renovated now and bears little resemblance to how it must have looked half a century ago. But I like the way the floorboards remain in four different types of wood - rimu in one part, matai in another, and so on - as rooms or corners were added over the years. I like the way the pelmet over the kitchen window has curved with age, and how the place is pretty much held together by layer upon layer of flowery wallpaper.

Interior designer Daniella Norling said last week, in the Herald on Sunday's View magazine, that a home should say something about the owner. You should be able to walk into a house and see something of the owner's personality, who they are, where they have travelled and what their dreams and passions are.

"New Zealanders have become very beige," she said later. "Too neutral, too much like a show-home, too afraid to put something of themselves into it."

The bach-builders of yesteryear were certainly not afraid of being different. It was all about making do with what was at hand, and so, with a window frame from here and a door from there, and with whatever paint happened to be on special, they stamped their personalities and their time in history on the landscape.

For the generations who followed, the bach has always been about simple pleasures.

Family, friends, a few drinks on the veranda, long lazy days on the beach and evenings playing cards. Big salad sandwiches and squeaky bunks. A chance for kids to be kids and roam free and get dirty.

Of course, thanks to the real estate boom, the average family has little chance of ever owning any kind of holiday bach. But I hope those who do will recognise that what they own is something special. May they resist the urge to flatten it and build something grander - and may they resist the charms of the ever-knocking property developers.

Because the good old Kiwi bach is just like the red, weathered paving stones on Vulcan Lane. A bit rough around the edges but full of history and worth preserving.