Road Trip: Campanile and South End Museum

Today we were tourists again ( as opposed to holiday makers.)
This morning we went to visit the Campanile. It was built to mark the centenary of the landing of
4 000 British Settlers in 1820 although it was only opened in 1923. It is 53 metres high. It was refurbished last year. The 23 Bells were taken down and cleaned, a lift was installed (as an alternative to the 204 steps) and art works were added. Some of the bells have received new inscriptions in Afrikaans and isiXhosa and rededicated to celebrate, amongst others, the deceased crew of the SS Mendi.

The Campanile from the station parking

Flow Poem and Frieze opposite the entrance

Model of a ship that brought the Settlers

View from the 7th floor towards the Donkin. It was too windy today to fly the giant flag.

View of the iconic soccer stadium

View of the Docks

The Ticking Pendulum

The Ghost Bells, taken from below

My favourite painting, "Port Elizabeth" by Ethel Sawyer circa 1923

We went up by lift and took the stairs down. At each landing there was some kind of display. I thought it was very nicely refurbished. There was a tour guide at the bottom who told us a bit about the history. I was glad we had visited it, even though the heritage walk book had said the area might not be safe. There was a security guard at the station parking and besides the tour guide who stayed at the bottom,  other officials could help with questions. Perhaps the Heritage Trail booklet is out of date.

After this we went to visit the South End Museum. It commemorates the heyday of what was South End, sadly destroyed by apartheid.  I found it heartbreaking. It affected me more than the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg. To start off we were shown a video. There was an alcove decorated like a dining room which was typical of the time. A transparent screen showed the interaction of a coloured family in that same dining room when they first found out that they would have to move because of the Group Areas Act.

South End was once a cosmopolitan suburb bustling with street life, known for its respected schools, numerous family businesses and at least five churches and two mosques. The area was bulldozed to the ground. The family realised that they would no longer have the friends they had, they could no longer attend the church they belonged to, many lost their family businesses and had nothing. Only one old fig tree and two mosques were spared.

Brian was interested in the Pier St Methodist Church because when his father was the minister at Humewood, he also had oversight of the South End church. Brian knew that the church no longer existed but he hadn't known what had happened. His family moved to Empangeni before the area was demolished in the late 60's.

There are a number of rooms in the museum, almost all of them covered with old photos of how life used to be, first hand accounts of how various families experienced the removals, famous people who lived in the area including many sportsmen and women who lived there or eyewitness accounts of what people experienced. One room also contained a huge floor map of how the area used to be.

At the end of the route where we signed the visitors book there was a typical wooden bench displaying the restriction signs I remember from my youth.

There was also a time line of the various apartheid laws, set into a staircase.

It was brought home to me how unfair and inhumane some of the previous policies were. Thinking about the destruction of what people had spent years building up made me realize again how easy it is to break down, demolish and trash places compared to how hard it is to build and create. Why is it that politics always seems to be more about breaking down than building up?  Today the newspapers are still full of destruction in the name of politics. Universities burned, cars trashed, shops closed down. Has anything changed?