Looking back on South Coast history: May 9 to 11
THERE was plenty of jollification but the news about sanitation and electricity supply was not good.
SERVICE delivery isn’t a new problem.
May 9
1986
“IF the Supreme Court application is successful, the Uvongo Town Council will have to repay its ratepayers the money they have paid for their sewerage rates.”
May 10
1957
“MONDAY’S Presentation Ball was one that will long be remembered, not only by the 19 lovely young débutantes, who made their graceful curtsies to His Honour and Mrs Shepstone, but by all the gay and well-dressed crowds who attended.”
1963
RAMSGATE and Uvongo were deprived of the bus service into Margate. “From Saturday, May 18, the Margate municipal bus service will cease to operate outside the borough area. Margate is faced with an annual deficit of R1 200 on the bus service.”
1963
“IN less than a fortnight 200 of those on the Natal South Coast who face the uncertainty of old age have indicated that they may wish to stay in the proposed Village of Happiness.”
1968
“THE speed limit between Port Shepstone and Ramsgate will, in the near future, be increased from 35mph to 45mph.”
1968
FROM time to time, a ‘warm and fuzzy’ story cropped up. “In July last year rough seas lashed along the coast in front of the Pumula Hotel in Umzumbe and at Stiebel Rocks a bedraggled baby penguin with a broken wing and various other minor injuries was discovered at the water’s edge.
“He was carried up to the garden of the Pumula Hotel and was there christened Peter, fed on smelly bits of chopped fish, given a special house in an enclosure and a small concrete pool to swim in.
“He began to recover and thrive and is now a permanent resident who is occasionally taken for walks to the sea, which he, possibly with memories of gruelling experiences, flatly refuses to enter,
“He returns to his enclosure, where he is catered for by the hotel’s fishing guests, who bring him their smallest catches, and children who oblige him by catching tiddlers. Peter prefers sardines to any other kind of fish and fishermen have, at times, been prevailed upon to sacrifice their bait to appease his appetite.”
May 11
1956
“AT 1am last Saturday scores of the older generation of Port Shepstone burgesses who had ‘come along to put in a token appearance for a couple of hours’ were still ‘chasing the glowing hours with flying feet’ at the mayoress’s charity ball in the Memorial Hall.”
BUT there was some serious news. “According to Margate’s mayor the town’s sewerage system is already inadequate and the council will very soon have to face up to huge expenditure to cope with what he considers its most urgent problem.”
1973
“SOUTH Coast cinemagoers have a new drive-in – at Hibberdene. It opens for the first time tonight.”
1982
ANOTHER 21st century problem has turned out to be nothing new. “South Africa’s consumers of electricity will continue to have problems, with power shedding causing breaks in supply, for the next four or five years.”
1990
“A PROPOSAL to close the Aiken Park High School at the end of the year has met with strong resistance.”
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