WATSONS AT THE QUINERA RIVER MOUTH
The Quinera River Mouth shacks, once seemingly so far from East London and in the wilds.
The Watsons and Newmans were well settled into the growing town of East London. Elsewhere on this website you will see references to the immediate district, the 1820 Settlers of who the Millers were part, of the challenges of setting up home and sometimes going off to the mines. East London was an important port to this hinterland and a growing town although not yet of city status. For those reading this who do not know South Africa, East London is a river port on the east coast. The region had undergone some name changes and was to become known as the Border region because of its history. These days you can go off fishing or surfing up the east coast with it becoming known as the Wild Coast across the Transkei section.
But in the days of which we are discussing here, the wildness started almost immediately one left the town. It was an adventure, a place to escape, a place to enjoy oneself.
We I set up home with my new wife in 1984, I built our home in the suburb of Beacon Bay overlooking the Quinera River, and soon we had two daughters there too. We used to windsurf or canoe that river all the way to the sea and the beach. Or we we would simply drive down and park at had been the access track mentioned below. It is ironical that my forebears found that same beach such an out of the way place to visit. Even from the centre of town, the trip now takes about 35 minutes. The east bank remained rather undeveloped in spite of a few modern huts including an aeroplane dragged through the trees and used as such. The west bank became the village of Bonza Bay absorbed into Beacon Bay. Although sometimes tidal, the Quinera River mouth was usually closed by a sandbank for several months of the year – until the next heavy rains. This allowed reasonable vehicle access across. Although this usually happens naturally, there are still conflicting views are opening up the mouth physically, but when it does burst through it is great fun for children to jump down the sand banks – as ours did.
The house we built was a few kilometres from the river mouth and on land my father had bought years before as an investment. When we emigrated he moved into our house with his second wife Nessie. Although out of sight of the river mouth, he retained a bond with the river.
The following was written by my father, Brian Watson in 1996. He acknowledges assistance from his eldest and youngest brothers Jack and Graham (Babe) Watson, Patsy Flemmer and “Noggs” Newman. It is fascinating to compare the time lapse.
Farm No. 186 between the Nahoon and Quinera Rivers was probably taken over by the grantee S. C. Mountford in early 1859 – although the survey registration only took place on 16 May 1863.
My family's first contact with Quinera River Mouth is chronicled by a photograph taken in 1904 with a note by my Mother written on the back “Discovery of Quinera as a picnic place”. About 30 people were grouped in front of two tented mule waggons. These waggons which were hired from David Ress had seats and drawn by a span of mules probably took 3 to 4 hours to reach Quinera Mouth from East London. My Mother, Maud Newman, aged 20 year, is in the front waggon and my aunt Nellie Newman is at the back, next to her is my grandfather A. W. Newman and grandmother Ida, with many family members and friends grouped around.
In 1916 my Father, Alexander Richards Watson, joined Joseph Lionel St. O'Gorman, and ex-India army soldier of Irish extraction, in the St. O'Gorman Chemical Company which made and sold cattle dips. They obtained a piece of land on the east bank of the Quinera River in the Forestry Reserve and erected a substantial cottage in 1917 using shingle concrete. This house was named “Doreen” after O'Gorman's sister in Ireland. One of my older brothers once told me that the corrugated iron roof was panted on the inside with stars and other decorations as it had been bought second hand from a circus.
This is the shack that they built. Note an outbuilding that of one of the neighbours behind. The records note the use of concrete made from shingle. This appears to be the central section to which corrugated iron and timber structure has been added. The site was a flat area between the river and the tall forested coastal dunes.
The broad pathway down to the river on the west bank was cut in order to enable the mule and ox waggons to get down the hill and around the river mouth to the house “Doreen” on the other side. The trip by ox waggon took about eight hours.
O'Gorman died rather suddenly in 1919 and the cottage was sold in his estate much to the chagrin of my father who had put up half the money to build it. It was bought by the Malcomess family.
In the 1920' there were seven cottages erected in the Forestry reserve on the west bank of the river. Bertie Rose-Innes a World War I veteran with his wife Queenie were the only permanent residents. Their twin rondavel house with connecting living room overlooked the river. They also had an adjoining visitors rondavel “The Hut. Bertie who had played cricket for South Africa suffered a leg injury in the war. When the houses were eventually removed Bertie Rose-Innes was appointed an “honary overseer” and he remained there for several more years. Eventually when his house was demolished “The Hut” remained as a store for the authorities.
In the early 1920's Marius Flemmer a prominent lawyer erected a neat lapped timber-sided house just behind the Rose-Innes. When he built a new residence on the banks of the Nahoon in 1924 (now (Nahoon Valley) he sold his cottage to the Bostock family of Stutterheim. Behind the Bostocks stood “The Shack” and behind that a shingle concrete house built by Norman Patterson of Manning and Pattersons garage (agents for Austin and Chrysler cars).
Nearer the sand hills was a brick cottage built by Willets (a local auctioneer). I particularly remember the drop wooden coverings instead of windows over openings in the walls. To the west the Tapson family had a Boer-War army demountable house.
In the middle was a large rondavel with kitchen and verandah owned by three Scots spinster sisters – the Misses McKay. Marius Flemmer was soon drawn back by the spell of the Quinera and when it came available he bought this rondavel for £50-00 and put up additional wood and iron bedrooms t suit his family and friends.
As a youngster in about 1927 I recall spending a holiday in “The Shack” then owned by F.L. Gregg and East London Estate Agent. Soon after in 1929 my Father bought this cottage which was of wood construction with yellowwood floors but he walls were a single thickness of asbestos sheet and the roof of corrugated iron. Many happy holidays and weekends were spent there until we sold “The Shack” about 1938 to earlier pass of my Father.
The shack consisted of 3 bedrooms, a large living room, kitchen and scullery. Outbuildings were a garage, store and servant's room and the inevitable earth closet. Water was obtained from the roof and stored in tanks. When we moved in for the holidays the whole family including Eliza our cook and often the cleaner girl move as well.
Most people slept in beds on the verandah. One bedroom was the “girls” room the other for “boys” while Mother and Father had their own. Most evenings were spent playing card games by pressure gas lamp (other lighting was by candles).
We usually had a bonfire on the beach each Xmas holiday and sometimes Easter; driftwood was collected and everyone was invited.
Subsequently in the 1930's the Gebhardts build a rather plain wood and iron fishing cottage much to everyones displeasure and the Baker family built another cottage out of car packing cases – to be aptly named “Chrysler Mansion”.
For many years the trip to Quinera Mouth entailed opening and closing seven gates from the one off the main road opposite Homeleigh Halt. One drove along a road consisting of two tracks with a grass hump down the middle and as one arrived at the shack area one had to turn around and run along the “sluit” (approximately where the hotel garden and cottages are placed now cut off by the block of flats). One then had to choose the best spot to tackle the very steep and sandy bank about 3 metres high before arriving on the grass plateau, cars would rush the little bank and often got stuck. When it rained the road through the red band of soil became a slippery mass of clay and almost impassable to cars.
For a period of time we used the “short-cut” which started along the valley at the end of Wyse Avenue in Abbotsford approximately where the N2 now runs, and climbed up the side of a steep hill before entering the original road at the start of the mielie fields. However it became so washed out that we had to stop going that way.
When the hotel was started the Divisional Council decided to take the road straight through at the end of Princess Drive. They cut through the bank and in order to get the road past our shack they merely moved the four rocks that formed the boundary pegs to enable the road to get past between our erf and that of the Bostocks.
All the houses mentioned were on state ground (Forestry Reserve) for which we paid £1.0.0. per annum rent.
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Mr Forward, a farmer who retired from the Queenstown District, had bought a portion of the original farm in about 1929, on this he laid out a township which he called Bonza Bay.
The original residents were all amazed that a township with narrow roads and rectangular grid could be placed over a steep sandy hillside with no attention to the contours but so it was – and today it stands today developed into a delightful suburb.
Houses began to be developed along the side of Princess Drive, one was a double building building with one section being used as a small shop and a tea room. Across the road other houses were put up by the Wyldes of Stutterheim and the Hinds. The next houses to be built were those erected on “spec” by Mr. Mark Harding, a builder from Kimberley; these were at the top of the hill where land was flatter.
Further up the river Dr. Grimsell lived in a brick house on a section of farm overlooking the head of the river; this property eventually through the graciousness of Mr. Bagshawe-Smith, found of the Farmers' Co-operative Union, became part of Kennersley Park Old Age complex.
Having set up the Township the Forwards erected a large house for themselves on the only piece of ground in their possession that was level and near the beach. It was not long after, that they turned it in to a hotel and erected the row of bedrooms that still stand today.
The original Quinera people were upset on two scores. The introduction of a foreign name “Bonza Bay” to our idyllic Quinera and the spoiling of the 9 hole golf course set up by Mr. Rose-Innes, the 1st hole disappearing under the hotel.
The original farm which belonged to Mr. Hugh Reynolds continued as a milk producing farm until it was sold and developed by Beaconhurst Estates in 1950.
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Dr. Ziervogel had purchased a portion of farm to erect his cottage on the east bank behind “Doreen”, being on privately owned land the house he erected stands to this day though much altered with a large aeroplane fuselage in its garden amongst the indigenous trees. This is not the first aeroplane to land in the Quinera! In the early 1930's on more than one occasion members of the Border Flying Club landed on the beach in one or other of the club's de Havilland Moth planes, the hard flat sand making an ideal landing strip. This beach was also used over a period of some years for motor-cycle races, usually at Easter time. “Doreen” being on Forestry Reserve was also demolished when the permits were withdrawn and is now the picnic area on the east bank. The Norfolk Pines remaining are the reminder of those delightful earlier days.
In 1934 the river became very full as the mouth did not break through with the spring rains. The people on the west bank decided to let the water out because of the masses of mosquitoes and because of difficulty of getting along the river to the beach. They go the co-operation of Mr. Forward who provided a dam scoop and cut the channel.
The Malcomess and Ziervogel families on the east bank like the full river as it enabled them to cross over in boars up to a hard grass shore; when the river was out they had to walk through mud on either side. As soon as they discovered what was happening these families stormed across and tried to stop the work. Besides threats of legal action Mrs. Malcomess physically lay down in the channel of water in order to stop the flow. The whole issues was publicised in the Weekly Stanard (which came out on a Saturday) and the next day the whole area was full of cars with people who came out to see the “Battle of Bonza Bay”. A photograph I have, shows at least 60 cars and probably there were over 100 cars there. Next day, of course, the mouth of the river was a100 yards wide roaring column of water.
Early photographs show square sided flat bottom wooden boats propelled by a pair of oars set in rowlocks. This was the standard type of boat for many years and when the hotel was erected the carpenter made another six for hotel visitors.
The Rose-Innes' had a substantial boat shelter with a large steel canoe-shaped boat which was launched by a cradle on tracks; sadly it rusted away.
My brothers and myself had a flat galvanised “tim” canoe and later I made myself a very successful canvas canoe. The Flemmer twins Boy and Patsy had a pair of Indian canoes named Minnihaha and Hiawatha – sadly they disappeared. Boy was tragically one of the first South African casualties of World War II when as an infantry man with the 1st Transvaal Scottish he fell at the Battle of El Wak in Abyssinia. Quentin and Philip Bagshawe-Smith were both in “A” turret on the cruiser HMS Gloucester when it was hit by a bomb during the Battle of Crete and perished together.
Other names that are recalled are recalled are Ian King and his brothers, (grandsons of Dr. Grinsell), Hugh and Dick Baker, Billie, Marie and Norman Patterson, the two “Tickey” Walsh's who often visited with the Pattersons.
Our visitors at the “Shack” were the Newmans, Robbs, Mason-Jones, Malletts, Tuckers, Rances and many more as we were a family of 5 sons and there were lots of relations and friends.
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One of the characters of the early 30's was Mrs. Malone. She lived with her husband and son Dodie on the Krantz overlooking the Nahoon River and if the bell was rung loudly enough one would be ferried across the Nahoom River Mouth in her boat moored at Blue Bend. The Malone's lived on proceeds from tth eferry, by providing bait for fishermen, small vegetable farming and selling Strelitzia flowers form the krantz.
The Quinera River was often “blind” for most of the year and the fishing then better than in the Nahoon, Mrs. Malone would walk across from the Nahoon to the Quinera of a night - “borrow” a rowing boat and net or grain for river mullet; by dawn she was on her way home. A bright carbide lamp was used to attract the fish and as they lay dreamily just below the surface of the water they were “grained”. A graining handle was a piece of wood about 1 ½ metres long with a row of 200 barbed steel points at the furthest 400mm end – an expert at this game she invariable had a good haul. We as kids were scared of meeting her on a dark night. River mullet were good bait for river fishing usually Kob. Various uncles were better rock anglers. With their rods and bait hooks they would walk up towards German Bay for galjoen, blue and other rock fish. Red bait was “pulled” on the rocks along the way.
Malone Heights, now the housing of millionaires certainly had humble Irish beginnings; and was only sold long after Beaconhurst had been developed.
We sold our “shack” to Mrs. Marian Carey; her family had happy times at the renamed “Happy Shack” until the permits were withdrawn in 1953. We were privileged visitors to the final party when the remains of the wooden house were burnt in a huge bonfire. “Happy Shack” still lives in our memory at the north-east corner of the bowling green.
Besides the Rose-Innes Cottage the Patterson's house was retained as the Club House for the newly constituted Bowling Club; and remains to this day as a solitary reminder of those halcyon days when Quinera was our selected sanctuary.
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In the early 1950's an East London consortium on 30th May, 1951, stated that the “land between the Nahoon and Quinera River is to become South Africa's most modern residential suburb and will be called East London North or probably Beaconhurst.
The suburb containing 1300 stands will cost £400, 000 to develop including the cost of a bridge over the Nahoon River”.
Eventually Beaconhurst and Bonza Bay Townships were amalgamated via a Municipality to be renamed Beacon Bay.
So what had been the wild idyllic place past the very edges of East London became absorbed into it. My father, Brian had invested in two sites when an extension was made on the upper reaches of the Quinera River and this is where we as newly weds built our house. Beacon Bay (really just named after a survey beacon on the highest point and the village of Bonza Bay) remained an independent council for some years. One of the quirky, but quaint things it did was to have the garbage collected by percheron horse drawn carts into the 1980s.
This is a view taken from over our house towards the Quinera River Mouth from a microlight. The locality of the shacks was where you can now see other buildings on the east bank ie the left of the river mouth. Bonza Bay to the right and Beacon Bay to the foreground. Note the "blind" river mouth and the large forested coastal dunes.
This is a view looking at our house marked with an *. It was taken in the 1980s from a microlight on which I got a ride. The view in the previous photo faces down the river to the left. We used to canoe from the bottom of the garden all the way to the sea.
