makhanda festival city
The city is renowned for its educational institutions, for being the national seat of the judiciary and for its cultural events
BACK TO SCHOOL
After an unsettled year in 2020, private school pupils at Diocesan School for Girls (DSG), St Andrew’s College and St Andrew’s Prep are back at school from today for the start of the 2021 year, one that will, hopefully, not be interrupted to the extent it was last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The summer term of Kingswood College and Kingswood Junior School, meanwhile, gets underway on Wednesday, January 20.
Welcome back!
Now Makhanda (Grahamstown) awaits the arrival of Rhodes University students, but that only happens in March.
MYSTERY OF THE SMOKE
Heavy smoke drifted over Makhanda late last week, leading residents to surmise there was a huge fire in Belmont Valley or Featherstonekloof. The mystery deepened when it was established there were no bush fires in the Makana district at the time.
Then it was learnt there were, in fact, huge bush fires in the St Francis Bay area to the west of Port Elizabeth, and it was subsequently speculated that very strong winds had carried the heavy smoke as far as Makhanda. Reports indicated that about 1,000ha of bushy areas had been burnt.
IN THE SADDLE
Makhanda road runner, triathlete, athletics coach, personal trainer and avid photographer, Terri-Lynn Penney, has taken on the challenge of cycling 20km every day for the month of January on her Giant 29-inch mountain bike round and about the suburbs of her hometown. That’s 31 days at 20km per day, a total of 620km of “getting to know one’s city”. Aided by Strava, her daily rides are measured, recorded and timed, and she tries to complete each 20km ride in less than 60 minutes, a tough task given the hilly, undulating nature of Makhanda.
Penney has previously represented SA at world triathlon championships in Hungary and Canada, represented Eastern Province in various road running disciplines, and taken part in more than a dozen Ironman and half-Ironman events.
She said her running and cycling around town over the years had inspired her to such an extent that she felt inclined to record the beauty of “Festival City” with her camera.
Her photos have been received with much enthusiasm on social media, with her mountain bike occasionally posing in front of churches, monuments, chapels and other places of interest.
While out running and riding she has also snapped jacaranda trees and their fallen blooms, brightly flowering aloe plants, sunrises, sunsets and a variety of street scenes.
When Talk of the Town hits the newsstands today, the 15-times Two Oceans ultra-marathon finisher will have ridden 280km, with a further 340km left to pedal.
Terri-Lynn’s husband, Stephen Penney, won the national Sanlam Community Press Photographer of the Year award in 2005 when he was sports editor and chief photographer at Grocott’s Mail.
BLOODWISE, A GOOD YEAR
It was a splendid year, was 2020, for the SA National Blood Service (SANBS) as far as its visits to Makhanda were concerned, and the year ended on a good note with no less than 181 units of the life-saving fluid being collected in December.
The Port Elizabeth-based SANBS currently makes weekly calls (Tuesdays between noon and 6pm) to Makhanda, plus the occasional visit to the parking areas of Pepper Grove Mall and SPAR Oak Cottage in their “blood bus”, and periodic visits to local schools and the Rhodes University campus.
SANBS donor relations practitioner, Maryke Harris, said despite the effects of Covid-19 during 2020, the service was elated with the response of Makhanda donors. She was especially pleased with the 13 first-time donors who presented themselves in December, at the same time encouraging more new donors to come forward in 2021.
The SANBS sets up blood collection clinics in the Dutch Reformed Church hall in Hill Street each Tuesday, and in December the five Tuesdays yielded 159 units of blood. The visits to Pepper Grove Mall and SPAR Oak Cottage yielded 12 units and 10 units respectively.
The next visit of the SANBS to the Dutch Reformed Church hall is from noon to 6pm on Tuesday, January 19.
IT WAS ONCE A MILITARY PRISON
I notice, belatedly so, that the Provost Café in Lucas Avenue, across the road from the main buildings of Rhodes University, has been renamed LA Café, offering not only great coffee but also a variety of eats. The café is located inside the Old Provost building, built in 1838 by the Royal Engineers as a military prison.
According to the delightful coffee-table book Grahamstown Reflected, published in 1995, the Provost prison gets its name from the provostmarshal responsible for the maintenance of order in military camps.
DOING THE WORK
Sincere thanks and appreciation are extended, once again, to the residents, businesses and other entities responsible for repairing potholes around Makhanda in 2020, plus mowing verges and picking up litter. May you continue your good work in the community, and maybe this year will also see some action by the municipality in this regard.
SPORTS CAMPS ON AND OFF
The last few days have seen St Andrew’s College staging sports training camps for its incoming pupils in four codes – waterpolo, rowing, cricket and tennis. The waterpolo and rowing camps were held to introduce this year’s grade 8 boys to the sports.
Kingswood College, meanwhile, postponed two sports coaching camps scheduled for this month – the U12/U13 cricket camp and the Eastern Cape waterpolo summer camp for U12 to U16 girls and boys.
The Grahamstown Schools’ Cricket Week is usually held prior to the commencement of the first term each year, but at the time of going to press the writer had not been able to confirm whether the 2021 event was going ahead or not.
SUNDOWNERS AT BELMONT
Tomorrow afternoon’s 9-hole sundowner competition at Belmont Golf Club down in the valley to the south of Makhanda will be sponsored by Kelston Motors, while Saturday’s competition is a club-sponsored betterball.
The following two Friday afternoon sundowner betterball competitions are the Sweet & Salty 9-hole on January 22 and the Viv Jordan “Chicken Day” on the back nine on January 29.
SOMERSET ALL OVER
On arriving from Cape Town at the beginning of December 1962, the Penney family moved into their home at the top end of Fitzroy Street, just below Sugarloaf Hill. The other day, just for fun, I might mention, I had a look at how the name Fitzroy came about. And I was pretty well surprised. It dawned on me that Grahamstown, way back when, had many “connections” with the Somerset family and the English county of Somerset.
Fitzroy Street is named after Fitzroy Somerset, son of Sir Henry Somerset, according to the comprehensive list of Grahamstown street names in my possession. In case readers are not aware, all the streets in the Somerset Heights suburb are named after cities and towns in the County of Somerset: Glastonbury, Dulverton, Ilchester, Selworthy, Porlock, Taunton, Withypool and others.
On the western side of Makhanda, Somerset Street leads to Rhodes University, private schools on that side of the city, and the CBD. This street was named after Governor Lord Charles Somerset and Sir Henry Somerset.
Other local streets with Somerset connections are: Caroline Close (daughter of Lord Charles), Frances Street (daughter of Sir Henry), Charles Street (son of Sir Henry) and Henry Street (Sir Henry himself).
BEST TO WEAR YOUR MASK
Failure to wear a mask in public during current Covid-19 lockdown regulations can incur a fine of R1,000, so it would be advisable to wear one when you’re out and about. Far too many people, it would seem, are walking around these days nonchalantly not wearing their masks. Be warned!
On the subject of masks, failure by a driver or operator of public transport to ensure the wearing of masks could lead to a fine of R500, while the failure by a manager or owner of a building to ensure people wear masks at all times could lead to a R500 fine.
People breaching the current curfew hours of 9pm to 6am are subject to a fine of R1,000.
Then there’s the sober truth of the fact that hefty fines could be imposed on the sale, dispensing and distribution of liquor (R20,000), consumption of liquor in public places (R2,000) and transportation of liquor without permission to do so (R20,000).
THEY’RE ALL GONE
I was waiting in the car the other day, parked in Hill Street just below where His Majesty’s Theatre once screened blockbuster movies, and thought that reading The Herald would pass the time quite nicely. But where to?
Four or five decades ago I could have bought the newspaper within a minute or three. There was Avalon Stores (Aroonslam family) a matter of three metres away, Bambi Snack Bar (Charlie Bambi and later the Wiblin family) diagonally across the road, Naran & Sons corner store (Naran family), Paula’s Bakery diagonally across New Street from Hotel Victoria, and even CNA around the corner in High Street.
But they’re all gone! I’d have to wait until I visited Pick n Pay in Pepper Grove Mall. How things have changed!