This week in South Coast history: May 5 to 8
Shark nets and harbour plans featured strongly this week.
PORT Shepstone got a new church.
May 5
1950
“THE ceremony of laying the foundation stone of Port Shepstone’s first Baptist Church was performed recently.”
1967
THE Ramsgate Town Board entered into an agreement with the Borough of Margate for the use and services of that local authority’s voluntary fire brigade.
1972
“THE shrill scream of an air raid siren is earning Margate the name of being a ‘petty apartheid’ town.”
1978
THE amalgamation of Umtentweni with Port Shepstone and Oslo Beach was called off after the matter had been settled in the Supreme Court.
1981
“EIGHTEEN hundred Indian people – 10 percent of Marburg’s total population – are living at bare subsistence levels and have no hope of bettering themselves.”
1989
“A PRIVATE hospital is on the cards for Margate with completion expected by July next year.”
May 6
1955
IT was announced that, as from January 1, 1956, the tariff for the nightsoil removal service in Uvongo would be be doubled. The 115 users of the service were “advised and encouraged to install approved septic tanks.”
1960
“BATHING enclosures at St Michael’s-on-Sea, Uvongo Beach, Margate, Ramsgate and Southbroom are being maintained at considerable expense. The local authorities of these centres maintain that there are no safer bathing facilities available anywhere in South Africa.”
1977
SUNWICH Port ratepayers learned that their combined property values had increased by 94 percent.
May 7
1965
“LAST week the Anti-shark Measures Board completed the first part of its tour of the Natal coast. They inspected in loco all the protective measures for bathers so far adopted by the various holiday resorts from Port Edward on the southern border as far north as Scottburgh.”
May 8
1936
“SHOULD the harbour develop on the more ambitious scheme, it is not too much to visualise the arrival of big pleasure coasting steamers, with tourists from the Cape and elsewhere to Port Shepstone harbour.”
1953
NEARLY 20 years later, they were still on the same subjecy. “It was agreed that any action calculated to expedite the construction of the national road bridge, at the cost of abandoning even the faintest hope of eventually securing a harbour for Port Shepstone, would be unwise and irresponsible at this juncture.”
BUT the advent of a new road was only part of the problem. “Unless something is done, and quickly, to check the frightening silting at the mouth of the Mzimkhulu river at Port Shepstone, within two decades from now cattle will be grazing in the estuary of the second-largest river of Natal – an estuary so broad and sheltered that only a blind man could fail to recognise it as a God-given harbourage on the storm-battered coast.”
1959
“MARGATE Chamber of Commerce has put forward a £20 000 scheme for the provision of a swimming bath of international standard and a children’s paddling pool in the Margate lagoon area.”
1987
“CERTAIN portions of the Port Shepstone central business district have been proclaimed a free trading area in terms of the Group Areas Act.”
AND the announcement was made that both the Lower South Coast Water Services Corporation and the Development Services Board would continue to function after June 30, the date they were due to be abolished.
PLUS there were hopes of a reprieve for the South Coast’s favourite tourist attraction. “Over R1-million has been pledged towards saving the Banana Express and promoters are hoping to reopen the railway for the July season.”
