Talk 30 December 2021

TALK OF THE TOWN 30 December 2021 Advertising & Newsdesk: (046) 624-4356 Find us on Facebook 13
The city is renowned for its
educational institutions, for
being the national seat of
the judiciary and for its
cultural events
makhanda
festival city
with SID PENNEY
Send your news of local events
and achievements, or of any
issues you might be having to
sidp@imaginet .co.za
or call (046) 624-4356
picture © bernard mackenzie / 123RF.com
RHODES ASTRONOMERS INVOLVED
IN DISCOVERY
A collaboration between Rhodes
University astronomers, University of
Cape Town (UCT) and Swinburne
University of Technology (SUT) based
in Melbourne, Australia, has discovered
a mysterious chain of hydrogen gas
clouds with the size of a massive galaxy
through the South African MeerKAT
radio telescope.
The international team is led by an
astronomer from the Max-Planck
Institute for Radio Astronomy and
Rhodes University visiting Prof Gyula
Jozsa, SUT’s Prof Michelle Cluver, and
Prof Thomas Jarrett from UCT.
Jozsa explained: “Only a handful of
cloud complexes with similarities to
this one are known, and our discovery
seems to differ in quite some key
aspects.
The simplest explanation would be
a tidal interaction between galaxies,
the gas being ripped out of the host
galaxies in a close encounter.”
MeerKAT is proving to be a groundbreaking
telescope, and many such
discoveries should soon follow this
“dark” cloud discovery in the exciting
days ahead.
LEAVING THE SCHOOL ON THE
HILL
For the past 10 years, Gerrie Warren has
been part of the PJ Olivier high and
primary school family, always willing to
go the extra mile, according to
principal Joubert Retief.
“She makes pupils and their parents
feel very welcome when they visit the
school office, with a caring heart and
always an ear to listen.”
Warren leaves the school at the end
of January 2022 to join her husband
Shawn Warren in the ministry.
He is pastor of the Pinkster
Protestante Kerk (PPK) in Makhanda
( G ra h a m s t ow n ).
CHURCH SQUARE NOT REALLY A
S QUA R E
Mention Church Square in Makhanda
to a current or former resident of the
city and he or she will, or should, think
Cathedral, City Hall, Standard Bank,
Clicks, Grocott & Sherry, Birch’s and
Woolworths, among others.
Of course Church Square is, and
has always been, much more than
departmental stores, banks and shops.
The square has been the gathering
place for military parades, peaceful
(and sometimes not so peaceful)
protest marches against this and that,
stopover points for motor rallies and
national cycle tours, and part of the
route for cavorting students involved in
Rhodes Rag and its entourage of
colourful floats.
In the mid-eighties a television
series was shot in and around the then
Grahamstown, and many miles of film
were shot on Church Square.
Talking of “shots”, who remembers
the sniper on the Grocott & Sherry roof
shooting someone exiting Standard
Bank which was a Supreme Court in
the series?
Anyway, I like the way author Emily
O’Meara described Church Square in
the book Grahamstown Reflected
published 25 years ago.
She wrote back then: “When is a
Church Square not a square? When it is
an eternal – traffic controllers would
say infernal – triangle. Found in
Grahamstown of course, and the
natural centre of the city from its
earliest beginnings.
“Slap in the middle of High Street,
dividing it into upper and lower
sections, a superb setting for the
Cathedral of St Michael and St
G e o r g e .”
When Colonel John Graham
selected the High Street site for his
military outpost early in 1812, the
ruined homestead of Dutch pioneer
farmer Lucas Meyer was restored as the
officers’ mess.
The officers pitched their tents on a
line parallel to their mess and facing it –
the city hall side of today’s triangle.
Their permanent housing was built in
the same position.
In 1814 surveyor J Knobel was sent
to plan the emerging settlement in an
“orderly fashion”.
And he was left with a triangular
space in the centre of what was then
known as Graham’s Town. That space
might allow a very convenient
situation for a church or any other
public building, Knobel declared at the
time.
And that is exactly what
NAME CHANGE: It was confirmed by the relevant government minister in
2021 that Grahamstown would be renamed Makhanda despite petitions
and various avenues of legal action. In the final month of 2021, the high
court sign at its upper High Street property still read ‘Grahamstown High
Court’ and it was unsure when it would be changed Picture: SID PENNEY.
GRINDING AWAY: MM Industries brought in some large and heavy
equipment from Gauteng in July at the commencement of the six-month
contract to resurface four CBD streets. Seen above in Hill Street is the large
milling machine that ripped up the ‘old’ tar and deposited it into waiting
trucks. Picture: SID PENNEY
materialised.
POTHOLES REPAIRED
I didn’t see it being done myself, but I
learnt from a normally reliable source
that a team of Makana Municipality
employees was out and about on
Sunday morning, December 12,
patching potholes.
Thank you for repairing these
horrible potholes that are found all
over Makhanda, but why on a Sunday
and not a weekday? Nevertheless, we
are thankful.
FROM THE CAR POOL
An item in the December 2 edition of
this column, under the heading
“Daimler fit for a Mayor”, dealt with
mayoral cars, and in particular the
Daimler car used by the then
Grahamstown mayor a number of
decades ago.
By the way, does anyone out there
(I’m talking former Grahamstonians)
know who the mayor was at the time of
the Daimlers?
The item in question opened with
the words, “These days it’s the norm, it
seems, for South African
municipalities, large and not so large,
to purchase or lease luxury sedans and
SUVs for use by their mayors and
executive mayors.”
Anyhow, a reader from the Western
Cape (former Grahamstonians all over
SA, from Cape Town to East London
and Durban to Johannesburg, receive
this column each week) points out,
referring to the opening paragraph in
the story on the Daimlers, that these
days no cars or other vehicles may be
purchased or leased for the exclusive
use of mayors and councillors.
They can utilise vehicles from the
relevant municipality’s general car
pool.
It appears that prior to 2014
municipalities could provide mayors
with vehicles for their exclusive official
use, but the practice was
discontinued.
ON FULL ALERT: During the peaceful protest on Church Square in mid-
June, various local protest leaders and activists were interviewed by national
television crews. The protest action was closely monitored by two SA Police
Service Nyala vehicles, one from East London. This protest gathering may
have been peaceful, but the protests two days later were far more volatile,
and the larger Nyala WP1800 was back in town with its crew. Taxi drivers
and others were protesting because of alleged service delivery failures.
Picture: SID PENNEY
Any other comments on this matter?
E-mail me on sidp@imaginet.co.za
BYGONE BUSINESSES REMEMBERED
Which of these Grahamstown
businesses (now Makhanda) do you
remember from the mid-1970s as
contained in advertisements placed in
the September 1976 edition of the
“Coming Events” bulletin published by
the Grahamstown Publicity Association
and printed by Grocott & Sherry
Pr i n t e r s ?
The main aim of the monthly
bulletin was to highlight the month’s
films to be shown at the city’s three
cinemas – Grahamstown Drive-In, His
Majesty’s Theatre and Odeon Theatre.
None of the three is in existence
anymore, sadly.
The advertisers listed below are no
longer trading. Which of them do you
remember?
The Drostdy Shop at 131 High
Street; Digby & Francis Estate Agents
on Church Square; RET Butler Chemist
at 11 Bathurst Street; Oxford
Furnishing at 105 High Street; Krige’s
Butchery at 1 Hill Street; Paula’s Bakery
at 17 New Street; Patricia’s Florist at 21
Hill Street; Arthur Griffin Pharmacy at
84 High Street.
Dragon Pearl Chinese Restaurant
on Church Square; Cathcart Arms
Hotel at 5 West Street; Fleurette Florist
at 50 High Street; Town & Country
Hardware Supplies at 37 Bathurst
Street; Simon & Barnes Ladies’ We a r
and Haberdashery on Church Square;
Rodgerson’s Provisions and
Advertising Agents at 112A High
Street; Gladene’s Toy Shop in the
Sanlam Building on the corner of High
and Hill Streets; and Kingsley Tyre
Services at 39 High Street.
Amazingly, while the above are no
longer trading or in operation
anymore, there are several businesses
from the mid-1970s that advertised in
the September 1976 bulletin that are
still trading, albeit under new
HAPPY WASH
DAY: During
2021 Pieter
Burger, right,
and Martin van
der Walt left
held several
charity fun
wash days at
their We Wash
It vehicle
washing facility
in African Street
where the
proceeds went
the way of local
charities and
worthy causes.
Here they pose
with a mascot
on one of the
fund-raising
days. Picture: SID
PENNEY
ownership and/or different locations.
Check these out: T Birch & Co
( B i rch ’s) on the eastern side of Church
Square; Knight’s Shoes, still on Church
Square but under different ownership;
Stewart Armitage’s Estate Agency, still
on Church Square and still in the
family; Grahamstown Home
Industries, then at 6 Hill Street but now
in Pepper Grove Mall; Albany
Jewellers, still on the corner of High
and Hill Streets but under different
ownership; LL Wallace & Co Chemist
( Wa l l a c e ’s), then at 21 Bathurst Street
but now in Pepper Grove Mall and
under different ownership.
SAFE MOVES
An advertisement appeared in a local
publication in August 2001 advertising
Stuttafords Van Lines for furniture
removals across SA. Their motto was
“The safest move you can make”.
The advert made me think of the
time several decades ago when the
Grahamstown-based Beaumont & Rice
was the No 1 choice for residents
moving to other cities and towns and
needing a furniture removals firm.
Their offices were at 112 High
Street (where Delizzia Coffee Shop is
today) and their trucks were
occasionally parked next to the centre
island. Remember them? Beaumont &
Rice’s vehicle repairs and servicing
workshops were in nearby Anglo-
African Street.
These days, We Move It, That Man
With a Van and Digs to Digs Removals
attend to cartage requirements in and
around Makhanda.
FITZROY, HELLIER AND OTHERS
For this week’s item on local street
names I was planning to use the names
of the four CBD streets that have been
undergoing resurfacing in recent
months. However, their names and
origins are hardly exciting, except
possibly for Somerset Street which is
named after Governor Lord Charles
Somerset, according to the official
listing of local streets compiled in the
1960s.
The other streets being retarred are
High (“main or public road”,
according to the listing), Hill (“o bv i o u s
hill, but possibly named after
Commissioner John Hill”), and New
(“obvious name”, says the listing).
So, instead, I thought I’d use the
names of four streets I lived in after
moving to the then Grahamstown from
Cape Town in late 1962. You go along
with that?
Fitzroy Street was named after the
son and brother of Henry Somerset in
1863, and Carnarvon Street after Earl
Carnarvon, secretary of state in 1866
and 1867.
Lawrance Street acquired its name
from Joseph Lawrance, commissioner
from 1849 to 1852, while Hellier Street
was named after James Bisdee Hellier,
town councillor in 1867.
Interesting, hey?