Go West -- and Bank a golden opportunity

Glyn Williams Column

EAST LONDON hardly knows its good fortune during its 150th anniversary. The wealth of the past is staring us in the face, and is largely ignored.

If the city lacks a central soul and might be described as a collection of suburbs in search of an identity, there is one part that has always had a nitty-gritty character, albeit fenced in by the harbour, an ugly railway line (there are some pretty ones), a car racing circuit, and industry that thankfully keeps East London humming.

East London Museum director Gill Vernon put her finger on the opportunity that lies in the West Bank when she said it was rare for a city to start in one place, and migrate comparatively quickly to another -- the east bank in this case -- for its real development.

Thus the West Bank was left in its Victorian time warp when East London and other cities in South Africa (and throughout the world) were busy knocking down its valuable antiquity to make way for the modern. It is the place that time forgot, thank goodness.

It is not one, two, or a half a dozen buildings that should be declared national monuments. The entire West Bank should be seen as a valuable South Africa trove where history is still living and not buried under starkly functional and monotonous commercial buildings.

There is such rich and fascinating heritage in what is basically a small area that there should be city and regional resolve, in the presumed absence of central government care, to preserve not just the status quo, but to set on improvement, and to get going with a campaign to have the entire suburb of West Bank declared a national monument.

That is exactly what it is, and should be officially, for we are looking at nearly 150 years of history, a rich and living heritage. We have the valuables and we hardly give them a second glance, let alone a thought, perhaps because they are out of the way, are down market, and from the general look of the place close to the bread line.

Frankly there is much that is tatty in the West Bank. There are piles of rubble, dirty and unkempt buildings, rusty corrugated iron, broken-down old furniture and rubbish unscreened from public view, the inevitable detritrus of plastic bags and other litter drifting around. In front of the Protea Hotel I found a broken-off gravestone; it was still there five days later.

It needs money, clearing up, a boost in morale, and the ultimate accolade of national monument, which should not be seen pessimistically as not possible in a region struggling to get even the basics of administration right, but as a civic goal and determination.

The poor public support for the 150th anniversary celebrations indicates we need such a cause.

Hopefully, the members of the council who accompanied Jill Vernon on a tour of the West Bank will also have seen the opportunity to galvanise a city in search of a soul.

THERE IS a Hood Street in West Bank and of course the Hood Point lighthouse, built in 1895.

We could not go in because the stairway was being repaired; this was a double blow because there was no shelter on this exposed point and the wind was fierce and cold.

Jill Vernon says the origin of Hood is uncertain, though it is assumed it was named thus in honour of a British admiral after the Royal Navy had surveyed the coast.

Hood is in fact a distinguished name in the Royal Navy, with the line stretching from 1724 to 1916. Viscount Samuel Hood was ranked by Nelson as among the greatest of admirals, Viscount Bridport fought with Howe at Gibraltar, and their cousins Alexander and Samuel also had brilliant contemporaneous naval careers.

Rear Admiral Horace Hood, a descendant of the first Viscount Hood, was killed at the battle of Jutland in 1916 at the age of 46 when his battle cruiser, the Invincible, was blown up.

THE FIRST port captain, George Walker, lived at 8 Smith Street; the house has been altered considerably since, as have many of the other timber and corrugated iron structures, with the addition of, for instance, plaster and verandahs.

George Walker, a Scotsman, is buried in the cemetery, not far from Hood Point.

He is said to have rescued 380 people from drowning and the sprightly former Border and Buffs rugby player Norman Hardwich reckons that is the genetic reason for the swimming prowess in his family; his wife, Mignonne, is descended from George Walker.

Mrs Vi Burns still lives in 34 High Street, a house which has also altered since her grandfather bought it for 250 pounds in 1899.

Timber to build the house could originally have come from ships that broke up along the coast; wood from the Stuart Star which was wrecked nearby in 1937 was used in the construction of an ancillary building at Hood Point.

THERE IS so much else that is of enduring history -- the Shed, one of the oldest buildings in East London and used over the decades for different purposes, the Protea Hotel, many houses, St Andrew's and St Peter's Churches, the old library still used as such, the post office that was a magistrate's court, the high school, the famous Norfolk pines -- and no they were never navigational aids.

Baker's Well: this was East London's original water supply and stemmed from a spring found among rocks on the West Bank. Gill Vernon says that at the very least a sign commemorating this should be erected at the spot.

Jeremy Watson will be expanding on Baker's Well, among much else, in his second and updated version of his excellent The Urban Trail, which he hopes to publish next year. He says that in addition to the facts and illustrations this time he will be more subjective and will express opinions.

The original work looked at the East London urban heritage from an architectural rather than an historical point of view. The second edition will encompass more recent events, such as the Steve Biko story and the freedom marches and will be more representative of the entire population.