| Home | Arts | Business | Environment | Faith | History | People | Services | About | Interactive | Links | Recently Added | Sport | Contact Us |
General
04 Feb 2010
The Way We Were was a series published in The Witness, looking back on local history and interesting stories which took place among people in years gone by.
Click on the title of the article to download and read the original PDF version.
A fictional hero in a city grave
A fictional hero with a real-life counterpart throws up something of Maritzburg mystery. In our series focusing on local history, STEPHEN COAN examines the real identity of Rider Haggard's hero Umslopogaas.
In our history series, we find that although Pietermaritzburg Station is now sometimes eerily quiet, it was an exciting and often used stop for South Africa's rail travellers.
A Norwegian school book of the 1800s taught two generations of Norwegian children that Africa was 'unhealthy, indeed lethal, for Europeans' and populated by 'semi-wild barbarians'. Despite this introduction; a few of these children made their way to this continent, where their grandchildren and children still live today.
Although Harry Lugg'S works read with the inevitabie patronising tone of his era, modern historians are indebted to him for putting pen to paper and leaving a valuaible record of Natal history behind him.
A friendship lost to principle
A conflict of principles involving politics destroyed the famous friendship of Bishop Colenso and Theophilus Shepstone.
Our local history series looks at a significant meeting in the city 37 years ago, today
Bandages and bedpans: A tale of 0ribi's hospital
This week's article in our local history series looks at the Imperial Military Hospital which was situated in Oribi Village and is the source of many memories for nurses stationed there
'The conditions under which the exiles were confined were not particularly harsh.'
Bibi ka Sompisi was a famous Zulu queen who survived the turbulence of the Zulu transformation, only to be tragically murdered in 1840.
In 1971, NINA HASSIM spent 78 days in solitary confinement at Hilton Police Station where she was interrogated by security policemen. She acknowledges the efforts made by an ordinary policeman to help her through this ordeal.
'Bathers often saw sharks swimming just beyond the enclosure.'
Bremen to Durban: Settlers forge a new life
This year is the 150th anniversary of the first German settlers in Natal. This week our local history series looks at their arrival.
Changing our view of the Bushmen
Seen as the surviving remnants of primordial hunter-gatherer societies, Bushmen are citizens of the same modem world as the one we like to call ours.
A city woman remembers her life as a political activist in our local history series
First stop for Rhodes cotton farming in Natal
One of South Africa's major historical figures first managed his brother's two farms near Pietermaritzburg, writes V.E. WOODLEY
'It was a real community... People from all corners of South Africa and all sectors of society lived as neighbours without even a garden fence behind which to hide.'
Carrying mail and post back in the day
The humble denizens of the British Empire were shocked to discover that their crown prince was a liberated specimen of the swinging twenties
Digging for wealth in Thukela valley
Fortune seekers abandoned unsuccessful mines in KwaZulu-Natal in favour of the profitable Witwatersrand goldfields
Early beginnings of the Indian press
The alternative press played a crucial but largely undocumented role in the making of modern South Africa
Two protests by Pietermaritzburg's women against the dompas in the fifties formed a milestone in the history of the resistance movement in the city. They are highlighted for our series of historical articles.
How Durban hearts opened to wartime pilots
In our article for 'The Way We were' series this week, VALERIE WARD and MARGERY MOBERLY discovered wartime letters written to a Durban family by an Australian pilot. What happened to him and his mates?
Implementing the Group Areas Act
In our historical series, The Way We Were, MARGERY MOBERLY and VALERIE WARD fo cus on Grey Street, Durban.
When the Voortrekkers arrived inthe Pietermaritzburg region in 1838, black farming communities had already been livinghere for an estimated 200 years, writes JOHN WRIGHT in our series focusingon local history.
Military hospital with a big heart
An article, 'Bandages and bedpans', about the hospital at Oribi during World War 2 aroused a flood of memories for many people and kept the Witness phone ringing merrily
Rendering language into writing
The second in Margery Moberly and Val Ward's contributions to our 'Way We Were' series looking at significant historical photographs, focuses on an important gathering.
Pioneering paediatric techniques
In 1959 care of critically ill babies took a major step forward with the development of new techniques by PAT SMYTHE, a retired professor who now lives in Nottingham Road. In this article of our history series The Way We Were he describes what happened
Pentrich families lay their claims
The final day of 1998 will be the last chance that displaced families formerly living in Pentrich will have to seek recompensation for their forcible removable. This week, our series on local history looks at the events leading up to 1965.
Pietermaritzburg once boasted its very own Internallonal motor and bike racing circuit - the Roy Hesketh. DAVE FALL looks at the history of the track and some of the personalilies involved
Our history seris looks at how a family was affected by the Group Areas Act
Pietermaritzburg did not lack entertainment dunng its earlier years - cinema and the theatre helped to provide an element of escapism for its residents
Recollections of racing and romance
This week's article in our series on local history looks at the life of Burton Kinsey, the only surviving winner of the gruelling D-J race, which he won in 1933.
Prized family memories tell of past power shifts
Established families in KwaZulu-Natal keep records of the past although stories passed down orally are less well known to historians than the written ones
Recalling the hardships of resettlement
It is estimated that some 3,5 million people were forcibly moved during the apartheid era
Music, needlework and other ladylike pursuits
'All such schools aImed to provide girls with a good general education firmly rooted in Christianity. '
This week in our local history series we follow the history of a fam ily which has contributed much to the clerical, sporting and teaching fields in KwaZulu-Natal
In search of 'fine detail' of conflict
Next week delegates at a conference on campus will look at what was unique about political violence in the midlands in the years 1984-94. SHELAGH McLOUGHLIN spoke to its organisers, John Wright and John Aitchison
'I'll see you get a medal for this'
As a war correspondent in the Anglo-Boer War, future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill never forgot the bravery of two railway workers in the derailment at Chieveley
Long road to recognition for black farmers
Production for markets by black farmers started as far back as the mid-19th century, despite opinions that black people couldn't farm properly
