LOOK AT HOW UMHLANGA ROCKS NOW

Retired Independent Media staffer and aerial photographer Brian Spurr shared this dramatic picture, right, taken this week of the uMhlanga Rocks promenade, showing the massive development taking place there. Spurr has over the years provided aerial shots of airshows and coastlines for publishing in Independent titles.

We went through our archives and found the photograph, left, published in 1969 showing the “luxury Beverly Hills, left, and the Umhlanga Rocks Hotel over a combined 15 acres of land”.

A lot has changed in 50 years. The Beverly Hills is to the left of the frame of the new picture, where the Pearls has developed on the site of the old hotel, which was the first one built in the then seaside village by Marcus McCausland in 1923. It was partially washed away in floods in the 2000s. And how different Chartwell Drive looks today.

The Independent on Saturday appeals to readers who have old pictures from Durban and elsewhere in the province to send them to us for consideration. If any readers are featured in an old picture, we will do our best to recreate the scene with them in it again.

Readers sending pictures digitally can address them, with the relevant information, to satmail@inl.co.za. Picture sizes should be about 1MB.

If the pictures are in hard-copy format, they can be posted to The Editor, Old Pictures, The Independent on Saturday, PO Box 47549, Greyville, 4023.