Makhanda festival city
The city is renowned for its educational institutions, for being the national seat of the judiciary and for its cultural events
COMMUNITY CARERS
Grahamstown and Sunshine Coast Hospices recently introduced their new combined brand and are now known as PalCare, providing holistic palliative and hospice care to Makhanda and Sunshine Coast communities. They cover the Makana and Ndlambe municipal districts.
PalCare’s Makhanda offices are situated at 15 Milner Street and can be contacted by phoning 046-622-9661. Their Sunflower charity shop at 67 Bathurst Street is open 9am to 4.30pm weekdays and from 9am to 12 noon on Saturdays.
CLASSROOM RETIREMENTS
Victoria Girls’ High School (VGHS) and PJ Olivier High School are situated less than half-a-kilometre from each other, and at the conclusion of the fourth term, two VGHS teachers and one PJ Olivier teacher proceeded on retirement after a combined 81 years of service to the schools.
Liz Farquhar has been a consumer studies, life orientation and computer literacy teacher, and netball coach, at VGHS for 35 years.
Di Smuts joined the VGHS staff in 1997 and has taught social sciences, Afrikaans and life orientation, as well as coaching tennis and hockey.
Adeline Gowar, former principal of Kenton-on-Sea Primary School, has been head of the English department at PJ Olivier, and she retires after 20 years’ service to the ‘school on the hill’.
Go well in your retirement years!
BIG RUGBY FESTIVAL AT GRAEME
Graeme College has released details of its 2024 rugby festival to be held on its Somerset and Marais fields from March 14 to 16 next year.
What was originally the Graeme Rugby Day, held on a single Saturday in March each year, became a three-day festival of rugby this year, with Graeme celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2023.
The 2024 festival will see schools’ first teams playing on the Friday and Saturday, with each school involved in just one match during the three days of the festival.
Some schools’ first teams played two matches each during this year’s festival of rugby, on the Thursday and the Saturday.
In addition to the rugby on display at first team level, matches will also be contested on the Graeme campus in the U14, U15 and U16 age groups.
Several schools from other provinces were involved in the Graeme festival in 2023, but next year’s event will see only Eastern Cape schools involved, due mainly to the fact that there is a surfeit of rugby festivals and rugby days scheduled for March countrywide.
The age group matches will be played on Thursday and Friday (March 14 and 15), while the first teams play on Friday and Saturday (March 15 and 16).
The first team matches scheduled for Friday, March 15 on Somerset field are:
9am — Port Alfred High 1sts v Graeme 2nds
10.30am — Port Rex Technical High v Mary Waters High
11.45am — Union High v Daniel Pienaar Technical High
1pm — Kingswood College v Marlow Agricultural High
2.15pm — Dale College v Nico Malan High
3.30pm — Grey High v Hudson Park High.
The first team programme for Saturday, March 16 is:
10.30am — Cambridge High v Muir College
11.45am — Stirling High v Framesby High
1pm — Queen’s College v Pearson High
2.15pm — St Andrew ’ s College v Brandwag High
3.30pm — Graeme v Selborne College.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM?
The official listing of Grahamstown streets was compiled in the 1960s by Mrs BE Rennie, mayor from 1967-1969. This listing contains the names of many thoroughfares that no longer exist, for some reason or the other.
Let’s look at some of them. Sheblom Lane used to run off Cross Street, while the whereabouts of Sephton Street are unknown.
Others include Armstrong Square, Bain Street, Brereton Road, Bankes Street, England Street and Ford Street.
THEY ADVERTISED IN PROGRAMME Mention was made in last week’s column of the three drag race meetings organised by the Grahamstown Car Club in the early 1970s.
The official programme for the 1973 event carried a number of advertisements placed by local businesses, most of which are no longer in existence.
Which of these businesses do you remember?
Hunts Motors at 112 High Street for Chevrolet vehicles; Settlers Motors in Hill Street for Mercedes Benz; Kingsley Tyre Services at 41 High Street for new tyres and retreads; Dismantled Motors in Cawood Street; Wesbank in upper High Street; Bambi Snack Bar at 6 Hill Street.
Lawrance & Co Wine & Spirit Merchants at 49/51 High Street; Victor Banks Refrigeration & Electrical Services at 31 High Street; University Publishers & Booksellers at 129 High Street; AE Hohman Hardware Merchants at 32/34 Bathurst Street; and Grocott & Sherry Printers, Stationers and Booksellers at 40 High Street.
All of these are no longer trading, but Birch’s of Church Square was among the advertisers, and they’re still going strong.
FLOWERY FESTIVAL
There are, no doubt, many Makhandans who have fond memories of the Grahamstown Flower Festival, with its exhibitions, demonstrations, adult and children’s flower competitions, stalls and other entertainment.
The programme for the 2014 festival came to light during spring-cleaning the other day and makes for rather interesting reading.
The flower festival grew out of the Albany Horticultural & Lilium Society’s popular annual spring flower show held at various local venues including the Drill Hall and Victoria Girls’ High School.
The spring flower shows enjoyed good support from the local horticultural community over several decades.
The Grahamstown Flower Festival had its first showing in 2009 and after several years moved from Makana botanical gardens to the 1820 Settlers National Monument.
The main sponsor for a couple of years was JoJo Tanks, and they also sponsored a water tank as a prize in one of the festival’s competitions. A few local businesses also came on board as sponsors.
The flower and plant competition attracted numerous local entries in various sections — container plants, roses, cut flowers, indigenous plants, proteas, orchids, herbs and vegetables.
The children’s flower and plant competition was well supported and saw entrants setting up their own displays at the venue on the eve of the opening of the flower festival.
GETTING IT RIGHT
There are streets and roads in Makhanda that are occasionally misspelt.
It was even more prevalent when the postal service was fully functional and envelopes and labels carried street names.
These days we have e-mail addresses rather than street names.
There is even a street in Sunnyside whose name boards differ, and that’s Lawrance Street where some signs depict the name as Lawrence Street.
Let’s look at some other misspelt street names, with the correct name appearing first and the often misspelt version in brackets.
Lawrance Street (Lawrence); Carnarvon Street (Carnavon); Lansdowne Road (Landsdowne); Caldecott Street (Caldicott); Huntley Street (Huntly); Allen Street (Allan); Thackeray Street (Thackwray); Frances (Francis); Montague Street (Montaque); Rivers Street (River); St Aidan’s Avenue (St Aiden’s); Selborne Road (Selbourne); and Trollope Street (Trollip).
GO WELL, BE SAFE
To all the readers of this column, contributors, as well as colleagues at Talk of the Town and Arena Holdings, here’s wishing you a happy and safe festive season. To those travelling long distances at this time, may you reach your destinations safely, and enjoy your break.