Driving into Wharf Street at sunset one day in 1961 was the start of a six-decades-long relationship with Port Alfred for former Tourism Director, mayoress, long-time member of the Kowie Players and Kowie Announcer columnist Heather Howard. She shared a fascinating glimpse into the holiday town’s history with members of the University of the Third Age Port Alfred (U3A) and visitors at Don Powis Hall, Settlers Park recently.
A slideshow of historic photos provided the backdrop for Howard’s talk, ‘Nostalgia Unplugged: six decades in Port Alfred’.
The story started through the eyes of a 22-year-old bride, arriving from Kenya with her wedding dress and little else, to join her fiancé Michael.
“I’d never heard of Port Alfred, and knew South Africa only from the pages of the Outspan Magazine which filtered up to the colonies.”
She arrived in September, “freezing cold” in her one outfit of light summer clothes: her suitcases had all been stolen in Nairobi just as she was leaving for the airport.
“I arrived here to meet my new family without even a toothbrush to my name – just my beautiful wedding dress in its dressmaker’s box which the thieves had missed on the floor of the car.”
Howard said she loved the town from the moment they drove into Wharf Street in the pink-tinted dusk and she saw the riverside homes, the old bridge and the boats bobbing in the water.
“Kowie in 1961 was really a village, straddling the river: the East Bank, where it was said they played whist and drank beer, and the West Bank, where they played bridge and drank whisky. Everyone shopped in Main Street,” she said.
An excellent public library founded in 1890 had a reading room with newspapers – “run in sacred silence”. But in the main library, successive of librarians, Gwen Stephen, Babs Snyman and Merwynne Jones, exchanged all the news of the day as they stamped the books.
“It was every bit as good as an olden-day village pump,” she said.
Small as it was, Port Alfred had a lively press.
“We were also kept up to date by the Kowie Announcer, a roneoed and blotchy A4 hand-stapled weekly collection of local news views, edited by Pa Jackson from the Hotel Victoria,” Howard said.
Jackson and the pharmacist, Jack Fox, had a running battle in print via editorials and the letters page, disagreeing on almost everything in no uncertain terms.
“That, of course, sold more copies as people waited to read about the latest bone of contention.”
A big moment in the area’s recent was 1972 when a large tanker, the Silver Castle, collided with the SA Pioneer about 15km west of Bushman’s River Mouth. The crew of the just-formed Port Alfred NSRI Station 11 were called out at 1.30am on a misty night in April to search for survivors.
One of the major talking points in the Kowie in the late 1960s was the proposed coastal road, now the R72 joining Port Elizabeth and East London via Kenton and Port Alfred.
“Great things were predicted once the road and its bridges were completed,” Howard said. In 1968, Town Clerk Rupert Miskin had confidently stated that property prices would double and a boom was on its way.
Port Alfred remained a favourite place for holidays where annual visitors were greeted like old friends and the holiday season was always busy with all kinds of entertainment. According to Howard, Port Alfred’s visitors included famous royals – the Prince of Wales in 1925, his brother Duke of Kent in 1934, his son Michael as Grand Master in 1990 and then, in 2012, princes William and Harry arrived here on a bike safari with a large group and stayed overnight at Mansfield.
Howard spoke about the origins of the Sarel Hayward dam – Port Alfred’s biggest water storage facility.
“My husband was on Council in the 1980s and they made the decision to build the off-river dam near Bathurst. It was named the Sarel Hayward dam after the then Minister of Water Affairs who came to Port Alfred to name it,” Howard recalled.
One of her career highlight as a tourism director was the inauguration of the Four Royals golf tournament. It was supposed to alternate annually between the Royals in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
“But everyone had such a great time here that it’s been held in Port Alfred ever since.”
Did you know that there are 15 local streets named after former mayors? Howard listed Putt, Vroom, Miles, Colegate, Stewart, Robertson, Hirtzel, Lambert, Stocks, Dickinson, Keey, Fairlie, Pearce, Gluckman and Devlin.
Hotels in Port Alfred contributed to the local economy and Howard named the Kowie Grand Hotel, Grannies Restaurant, The Old Victoria Hotel and the Langdon.
Many local businesses have used the Port Alfred’s other name, Kowie over the years
“One visitor asked me when I was at the Tourism Office, who was this chap “Koo-Vie” who owned so much of the town!” she recalled.
Howard revealed that Port Alfred had always been well served by its service clubs such as Lions, Round Table and Rotary, with each bringing much needed relief in many areas of the community.
