The Casual Observer

Bridges over the Baakens River and its Mouth

By Blaine McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 10 April 2020 0 Comment

This blog does not represent the story of these bridges. Rather it represents an attempt to link every photo of a bridge to the correct bridge mentioned by Margaret Harradine. This was more difficult that it seems as many bridges were destroyed multiple times. The original caption on a photo never identifies whether the bridge was in fact the second or even third bridge at that location. Blaine McCleland, the technical advisor on this series of blogs undertook this tedious exercise and has produced this report.

Main picture: Possibly the Folley Bridge (looks like South End side in the background with Lower Valley Road)

Personal Experiences of the Provincial Hospital: The Unkindest Cut

By Blaine McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 6 April 2020 0 Comment

Like the overwhelming majority of Europeans of my generation in PE I was born in the Provincial Hospital – Sandford Block to be precise. Not for us the home births in a Tepee with a dreamcatcher gently twirling in the breeze while a Mother Earth midwife rocks on her haunches as she chants incomprehensible jargon. No, for all the talk about being tougher, my parent’s generation for once were wusses and did not do it au naturel like their mothers – sterile hospital birth it was.

Main picture: Parking lot exit into Buckingham Road – the scene of my denouement in early 1975 while on a mercy mission to visit a friend.

Port Elizabeth of Yore: From Temporary Jetty to Focal Point – The North Jetty

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 5 April 2020 0 Comment

The erection of the North Jetty was the second attempt at constructing a jetty in Algoa Bay. The first one had been unceremoniously destroyed in a ferocious gale on the 26th August 1843 when three ships were driven through it. Until the construction of the South and the Dom Pedro jetties almost 30 years later, this small extemporised jetty would serve as the focal point of the harbour.

As it turned out, this temporary jetty would fulfil the starring role as the main jetty until the Charl Malan Quay was built, some 63 years later.

Main picture: An early view of the North Jetty probably from the 1870s

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Moorings instead of a Harbour

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 4 April 2020 0 Comment

As Jon Inggs acknowledges in his enlightening thesis on the development of the harbour until 1870, “Nothing was done to improve landing facilities at Algoa Bay before 1820 apart from setting up a flagpost on the landing beach with the dual role of marker and signal as to whether it was safe to land or not”.

What would be done, if anything, over the first decade from 1820 to 1830 in order to improve matters for shipping in Algoa Bay?

Main picture: Port Elizabeth from the shipping in 1850 by HWHC Piers [NMM Art Museum]

Should the wearing of masks be imperative for all?

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 3 April 2020 0 Comment

I am increasingly of the opinion that the wearing of masks is an imperative. I have just finished listening to a Czech doctor who said that it is mandatory to wear masks the moment they step outside and their infection rate is testimony to those measures. I’m not talking about the N95 mask but the ordinary pleated mask. Its all about risk reduction.

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Grandiose 1905 Harbour Scheme That Never Was

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 3 April 2020 0 Comment

At the turn of the 20^th century, Port Elizabeth still did not possess a harbour. For fifty years no progress had been made in spite of a barrage of requests. In 1905 the Cape Government submitted three proposals to a commission of engineers in London to adjudicate them. The commission recommended the submission by Coode, Son and Matthew but would this proposal be the plan to eventually be executed?

Main picture: Proposed new dock at Port Elizabeth with the outer wharf at North End

Port Elizabeth of Yore: When the Swartkops River almost became a Port

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 2 April 2020 1 Comment

Far be it for me to impugn the motives of the Port Elizabeth Harbour Board for requesting an eminent harbour engineer, Mr. C.W. Methven, to report on the practicability of building a harbour at the mouth of the Swartkops River. Accordingly I will not speculate as to their rationale but rather assume that the issue regarding silting would forever bedevil the construction of a breakwater at or in close proximity to the existing jetties and landing beaches.

Main picture: 1862 map of the Swartkops River

Port Elizabeth of Yore: Second attempt at Construction of the Breakwater

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 1 April 2020 0 Comment

Despite a breakwater being a critical component of a harbour, Port Elizabeth was deprived of one until the 1920s. That consigned the unloading of the ships to be performed in the roadstead, an archaic practice, long since abandoned by other ports.

The initial attempt at building a breakwater in 1856 was disastrous as it became unusable due to silting after the flood in 1867. It would be fifty years before another attempt would be made to construct the breakwater.

Main picture: Breakwater with the Charl Malan Quay still under construction

Port Elizabeth of Yore: The Effect of Spanish Flu

By Dean McCleland in Port Elizabeth of Yore 30 March 2020 0 Comment

In the midst of the Coronavirus epidemic ravaging the world, South Africa will have to brace itself
for a tsunami of dead bodies. Given crowding in the townships and on the public transport, social distancing is impractical. The last time that South Africa experienced such a pandemic was in 1918 which resulted in at least an estimated 500 000 deaths.

How did this pandemic affect Port Elizabeth? And what lessons can be learnt?

Main picture: Mouth of the Shark River in Humewood with Lazaretto Contagious Diseases Hospital

The Rice Video – Carbon Dioxide in Perspective: Is There a Grain of Truth in What Roberts Has to Say?

By Blaine McCleland in Current Affairs 19 March 2020 2 Comments

When I was directed by an email link to this video (https://www.youtube.com/embed/BC1l4geSTP8) I thought I had been sneakily misdirected to a televangelist’s video – he looked just like your common or garden mercenary TV pastor/charlatan.

I must admit that I did not get past the first minute of his presentation when his earnest piercing eyes forced me to shut him down before I did the coyote trick and chewed my arm off. So, this will not be a comprehensive refutation of his claims but I got enough of his drift and arguments early on and I did not wish to waste my life any further than I had to. It’s all been said before.