The Opinion Pieces are an eclectic bunch on current affairs & history often with a human interest aspect. The Movie/DVDs reviews are mainly on documentaries with a smattering of movie reviews.
Amongst the grievances of the residents of the Eastern Cape from the 1850s onwards was the question of building a harbour at Port Elizabeth. Keenly aware that the needs and interests of Cape Town were favoured above those of Port Elizabeth, the Separatist Movement was formed. To satisfy their movements’ grievances in the wake of the adoption of the Responsible Government Bill in 1872 in which their complaints were not addressed, they then proposed either the creation of a Federal Structure or alternatively complete separation from the west.
Inasmuch as the Eastern Cape was more entrepreneurial than the Western Cape, their needs differed from those of their Dutch speaking residents in the west. Beset by difficulties such as the lack of roads, irrigation schemes and a harbour through which to export their prime product – wool, they were understandably reluctant to subsidise the western Cape.
This blog covers the endeavours of John Geard to obtain funding for a new harbour and to expediate the issue.
Main picture: The ill-fated breakwater which had to be demolished after being silted up almost immediately after the completion of construction
Unlike normal harbours which would comprise breakwaters and quays, Port Elizabeth never possessed a harbour in the accepted sense until the 1930s but instead operated from a series of jetties jutting into the bay. Operations became a tedious and time-consuming series of loading and unloading activities as cargo was shuttled in lighters between the landing beaches and the vessels at anchor in the roadstead. Besides these unproductive activities, shipping operations were compelled to be suspended during periods of rough seas. In place of placid waters cloistered behind the enclosing breakwater, the jetties had to weather the storms. It was only in the 1930s that the jetties were replaced with the breakwater and quays.
This is a brief history of these vital cogs in the harbour operations.
Main picture: Transnet Heritage Society April-1901 showing the swimming pool in the harbour
These five structures, the Campanile, Mosenthals Building, Richardsons Building, the Reserve Bank and the City Hall represent the essence of Port Elizabeth in terms of its history. Now some have been demolished or blocked out and some replaced with ahistorical buildings with no connection to its past or in fact its future.
Main picture: The majestic quintuplets – Campanile, Mosenthals, Richardsons, Reserve Bank, City Hall
In the book “Memoir of the Hon John Geard of Port Elizabeth,” published in 1904, Hanesworth provides one with a vivid picture of the state of Port Elizabeth. Without a local council, the hamlet had grown for the most part without “let or hindrance” and furthermore without a vision. But this would soon change.
This blog is a verbatim quote from that book.
Main picture: Port Elizabeth in 1840. The non-descript building on the right is the original iteration of St. Mary’s church
For the most part the upper echelons of Port Elizabeth’s society possessed more than a modicum of civic pride. Whether it was the improvement of the town itself or the upliftment of its residents, all such efforts would ultimately bear fruit and produce the town that it would become.Amongst such people was the Geard family. Starting with the initial Geard in Port Elizabeth, Charles Geard, through to his son, John, and his grandson, Charles, for three generations they bore the mantle for the improvement of the technical skills of its residents.
This is the story of more than a physical institution but also the dedication of a caring elite and was an eloquent testament to their passion and public spiritedness.
Main picture: Donkin Street. Above C Frames’s premises is the Mechanics Institute, designed by Percy Strutt and opened 23 January 1865. The land was a Government grant & after the Institute closed in June 1954 it reverted to it & became a Post Office.
Walmer Heights is a residential area of Walmer and according to Redgrave, “Mr. Geard purchased in Walmer 100 acres [40 ha.] of the estate known as Walmer Heights which he converted into a magnificent country residence”.
At some time most of us have idled away our boredom trying to spot the 10 differences in two drawings in magazines that lie around. I have reprised a SMAC from one year ago – #31: Hollow Victory Day Parade. Apart from the naughty snails who just do their own thing, the eagle-eyed, well in fact even the myopic, will spot two major differences, namely that the tanks are now T-55s and the presence of a chef as Putin’s right-hand man. Russia celebrates the victory against the Nazis on May 9 each year. These have always been grandiose affairs, as befitting dictatorships, with serried ranks of neatly starched soldiers and endless columns of military hardware grinding over the Red Square cobbles to cow the proletariat while engendering (if I’m allowed to use that word) militaristic fervour and scaring its enemies.
Last year was quite muted contrary to expectations. Their invasion of Ukraine had not gone according to plan. In fact, it was disastrous. In the two and a half months up to the Victory Day Parade, Russia had lost over 1000 tanks and 2500 APCs (armoured personnel carriers) and their military cupboard was looking a bit bare. That was why I portrayed the parading T-72 tanks as mere stage props trundling past.
Things have just got worse. They were humiliated first in the north east when their front collapsed and a few months later when they were ignominiously forced back across the Dnieper River in the Kherson region. In the 439 days of ‘special operations’, Russia has now suffered losses of more than 3600 tanks and 7000 APCs, most spectacularly blown to smithereens. Their war chest is looking decidedly bare by now and, first T-65s and more recently, T-55 tanks have been photographed being railroaded to the west. The latter was Russia’s first post WW II design and production terminated in 1958. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The other difference is Putin’s Chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin, restauranteur and oligarch, or is it oleaginous orc*. He wormed his way into the inner bowels of Putin’s cabal and created the Wagner Group which essentially is Putin’s private army. They operate beyond the law and are used externally to do Putin’s wet work. With his special operation going awry, Putin called on him to bolster his army. The head chef scraped the bottom of the barrel and recruited rapists and murderers from the Gulags who were promised freedom if they survived 6 months. Good odds they thought. With not enough time to train them properly and employing suicidal charges that made the Japanese banzai attacks in WW II seem quite reasonable, they were served up to the Ukrainians rare, very rare. The Ukrainians promptly returned them well done, if not crispy, with the message that they did not cut the mustard.
* The Ukrainians refer to the Russians as orcs. Orcs are humanoid monsters created by J. R. R. Tolkien.
The name Daisy de Melker is well known in South Africa mainly due to the fact that she had murdered her husband by means of poison. Port Elizabeth also possessed its own home-grown female poison murderer yet her name is unknown to anybody in Port Elizabeth.
Main picture: Margaret Rheeder
From 1939, when she was married at the age of 18, until Tuesday, May 6th, 1958, 19 years later, when she had a date with the hangman, Margaret Rheeder was beset by domestic problems. Three years after their marriage, her husband, Benjamin Fredenman, walked out on her, leaving her with two small children.
Lacking qualifications, Margaret survived by “making a living” by means of the oldest profession, prostitution. Later when she met a man of 70, who moved in with her, she continued to take in clients. One of them was in bed with her when her estranged husband came home. Incandescent with rage, he severely beat Margaret, while the client made good his escape.
On the morning of 27 April 1957 Rheeder went to a pharmacy in Kempston Road, Port Elizabeth to buy a bottle of Antexit ant-killer. Before she left the pharmacy, Rheeder signed the Poison Register and the owner who served her, a Mr A. Redhouse, warned her about the danger of the product to human beings and pets. Two days later her husband fell ill and died.
A doctor recorded Death by natural causes on the Death Certificate, but he was mistaken. Following dark rumours which reached the ears of the police in Port Elizabeth, the body was exhumed and at the subsequent post-mortem was found to be riddled with the arsenic that a vengeful Margaret had bought to kill him. Despite indisputable evidence confirming and corroborating her guilt, Rheeder vehemently denied poisoning her husband.
Benjamin Fredenman-Rheeder’s husband
Despite a mercy plea by the jury on account of the ill-treatment which she had suffered at the hands of many men, the judge was unmoved. Her final journey in her lifetime, a meeting with the hangman at the Pretoria Central Prison, was set for Tuesday, the 6th of June 1957. It was during her final walk from her condemned cell to the gallows that the guilt-ridden Rheeder confessed to the crime making her guilt indisputable. Finally her troubled conscience had compelled her to admit the truth in spite of all the previous denials
During the 1930s in South Africa, the right-wing politicians emulated their brethren in Germany and Italy by adopting the stance that all of the evils visited on their country were as a consequence of the Jews. They even adopted a similar form of attire except that it was grey in hue hence they adopted the nomenclature The Greyshirts. They embraced all the odious memes and rhetoric of their European counterparts accusing the Jews of all manner of perverted acts.
This blog covers their activities in the Port Elizabeth region.
Main picture: The Gryshemde – South Africa’s Nazi Party
To the great relief of the shipping industry, after almost a century of exhortations to the authorities to provide a harbour comprising a breakwater and quays, on the 28th October 1933, the new harbour was commissioned. Without a breakwater, the old piers were subject to the vagaries of the weather with loading times often being as long as 25 days.
Now Port Elizabeth was able to compete with Cape Town and Durban
Main picture: The warship the HMS Dorsetshire on the 28 October 1933 at the opening of the Charl Malan Quay. It was sunk by Japanese dive bombers in April 1942 near Ceylon..
