BRIAN WATSON WATSON
Yes he was called Brian Watson Watson. If you look at the Watson family tree you will find several people whose middle name continues the memory of a past surname. These are mainly, but not only maternal. In this case it is paternal.
He was my father. And they had a second son.
He was born to Ella Maud Watson (nee Newman) and Alexander Richards Watson on 14th February 1920 in East London, SA. One of five sons.
His military career during WWII is covered under WATSON, BRIAN AT WAR, but when going through his correspondence of that period, you will find that he had already begun training as an architect and had a job. There are letters attempting to get transfered to an army post in which he could practice his career calling, but it was only after the war that he could finally complete his degree. In fact this was fast tracked as someone who had served, but he also managed to get qualifications in town planning.
He married Pamela Mary Wells in Johannesburg on the 28th of May 1948. While still working there they had a son - me. And they began to look for a home in his home town, East London. They eventually found both work and a flat there and I had my first airflight at the age of two months.
He worked for some years as East London City Architect and was involved in several significant projects such as the Guild Theatre and Orient Beach Complex. Other council work included the city crematorium and the Mdantsane Post Office.
He left the council and began his own practice in 1964. Pam was his secretary. The practice did housing, railway hostels, several schools, the Christian Science Church, warehousing including work for his cousin, Nogs Newman, some factories and work in the then emerging independent homeland of Ciskei.
When I joined the practice in the early 1980's (I had already worked there most holidays while a student), we continued in much the same vein. We extended the Guild Theatre and did significant extensions to the Museum. I also managed to get involved in the restoration of the City Hall, a sprawling building of 1896.
He was very involved in the Border Historical Society, the East London Museum Board, the local arts society and the Christian Science Church. And he was an avid dinghy sailor, first at the club at the Buffalo River mouth and later at Bridle Drift Dam. And while we were growing up he got very involved in the Boy Scout movement, both our First Nahoon troop and regionally.
In his own youth he had attended a national jamboree right there in East London with Baden-Powell in attendance.
His involvement in the museum carried on the interest of his father who had been one of the founding members. The administration and research wing that we added in the 1980's is named the Watson Wing after both of them. He got to know Marjorie Courtney-Latimer of coelacanth fame well.
In the 1990's the practice was given the contract to do maintenance and minor redesign of the Mdantsane Post Office that he had designed back when he was with the council. Mdantsane was now within the "independent homeland" Republic of Ciskei. However before we could really get started it suffered a small bomb explosion that shifted a wall and collapsed a ceiling. I handled the construction tenders, but before I could get the results almost every single government and quasi-government building had been torched along with a number of private buildings. Our project suddenly got increased in scope.
The office sometimes seemed to be an offshoot of his interests. The regional National Monuments Council on which he served seemed to sometimes be run from there. And staff could be expected to type up minutes or draw maps as for his contribution to the book on the Kaffrarian Rifles.
