A different view on current affairs & history
With the recent release of the proposed Medical Aid tariffs for 2017, medical costs were once again thrown into the spotlight.
What are the drivers of increases and what is the prognosis over the next twenty years?
Prior to the arrival of the 1820 Settlers, it would have been an exaggeration to claim that Port Elizabeth was sparsely populated as that was an overstatement of the facts. Indeed, it was mostly depopulated. Apart from a dozen farmers in the whole area from the Sunday’s River to the Gamtoos River, there was an understrength company of soldiers based at Fort Frederick and thirty-five inhabitants mainly residing along the coast at the foot the Hill.
In addition there were bands of Khoikhoi but as they were peripatetic, evidence of their existence was seldom seen.
Main picture: Port Elizabeth in 1833
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In an era when leisure activities were sparse to non-existent, gossiping about crime was one of the few pastimes which was available. And it was free. This chapter will briefly cover the establishment of a Court House and then deal with a number of cases which gripped the imagination of the towns’ folks during the nineteenth century.
Main picture: Clockwise from the top left, these buildings have served as the Court House over the years. 1. The building between Evatt’s house on the left and the Post Office on the right from circa 1825 to 1856. 2. Commercial Hall from 1856 to 1884. 3. Magistrates Courts from 1884 to 1934 in South Union Street. 4. North End Law Courts from 1934 onwards
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Everybody who has grown up in Port Elizabeth must have been to the Stage Door at some point during their misspent youth. What is fascinating is that the Phoenix Hotel has been in operation since the early 1840s, first in Market Square, and since 1941 at 5 Chapel Street, making it the oldest operating hotel in Port Elizabeth.
Main picture: The original Phoenix Hotel located in Market Square
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Main picture: Mr Thomas Henry Clement
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If Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s first week in office is indicative of her future performance in the job, then be prepared for a Public Protector who defines her role not as the protection of the country, but rather the protection of the Zuptas.
Main picture: Busisiwe Mkhwebane
SADTU along with some school children have been attempting to invade schools to stop them from writing ANAs, Annual National Assessments. They reckon that they are a waste of time but I suspect that the ANAs will expose them. In any case, they do not like doing any extra work whatsoever.
Main picture: Teaching in South Africa
Never once did my father ever discuss his involvement in WW2 let alone regale us with stories of the war. Today I bemoan the fact that he was not more open & forthright about his participation; any vignette, however mundane, would have provided an insight into what he had to endure, what was risible and what was hilarious.
Despite the fact that he had contracted polio as a youngster, and hence was technically not eligible for military service, yet he duly and dutifully volunteered.
Military duties comprise two categories: active service and non-active service. The latter encompasses experiences such as how they survived on a litre of water per day, the scorching heat or the cloying oppressively, hot southerly khamsin winds. In my father’s case, being an artificer and a driver precluded him from direct contact with the enemy. Nevertheless, all of his other experiences could have provided a valuable peep into a lost world.
This blog is solely based upon his Military Record which Steve Groeneveld, a running friend, has been able to obtain from the military document centre in Pretoria.
Main picture: Harry Clifford McCleland in military attire
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June 28, 2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The Serbian assassin, Gavrilo Princip, fired the first shot in what was to become a horrific four-year long bloodbath. Unbeknownst to the inhabitants of a peaceful settler town on the coast of Algoa Bay, that shot would ultimately reverberate within its military barracks, its churches and its homes.
One hundred years after the start of the Great War, none of the participants remains alive, Harry Patch being the last to pass away. Nevertheless, we are periodically reminded of the valiant but ultimately futile exercise by the aging relics, fading photographs, scarred landscapes being reclaimed by nature, and memorials and graveyards across the globe.
This blog is in memory of a few of those sons, fathers, brothers and friends from Port Elizabeth who paid the ultimate price for that assassin’s bullet.
Main picture: Soldiers of an Australian 4th Division field artillery brigade walk on a duckboard track laid across a muddy, shattered battlefield in Chateau Wood, near Hooge, Belgium, on October 29, 1917. This was during the Battle of Passchendaele, fought by British forces and their allies against Germany for control of territory near Ypres, Belgium. (James Francis Hurley/State Library of New South Wales)
In reading Helen Zille’s excellent autobiography, she narrates the incident in which she received a phone call in the middle of the night alleging that her spouse was involved in infidelity. This despicable practice is used as a ploy to intimidate or to extract revenge.
As I have experienced a similar incident some 20 years ago, there were uncomfortable parallels in my mind. Fortunately, in both cases, no lasting recriminations or suspicions were aroused or damage inflicted on the relationship. Yet it did cast some momentary doubts on the affected spouse in both cases.
Main picture: Helen Zille, Premier of the Western Cape