#JourneyTo100Years: Hills learns about South African agriculture
Hills wrote an extensive account of his life as a journalist, which was published in 1940 in the Benoni City Times and the Germiston Advocate.
William Hills found one of the most interesting features of his early life in South Africa was the insight he gained into South Africa’s farming problems.
“The Agricultural Show brought all the farmers to Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha), and as I had to report this great event I became quite learned as to the points of horses, cattle and sheep,” he wrote of his time at the Port Elizabeth Advertiser in the 1890s.
“As editor of an ‘Agricultural Journal’ one had to be an authority, but it may be asked how could I pretend to be an authority on South African farming after only six months in the country.
“May I let readers into a secret. A journalist, if he knows nothing whatever of a subject, takes care to get hold of a man who is a real authority before he writes a line, and as most people are at their best when talking of a matter very close to their hearts by a judicious series of ‘Ahs’, ‘Just so’, ‘Yes, indeed’, and ‘I think you are right’, you accumulate quite a fund of information in shorthand notes to be judiciously utilised when you start the proper report.
Hills wrote an extensive account of his life as a journalist, which was published in 1940 in the Benoni City Times and the Germiston Advocate too. In it he told of his journey to South Africa, beginning with his first billet on the South African Press at the Port Elizabeth Advertiser.
Hills confessed to a feeling of dismay when the newspaper’s proprietor asked him for a series of articles explaining the rinderpest – how it occurs, how it should be treated and so on – after news of an outbreak in the north reached Port Elizabeth.
“I pleaded that I knew nothing about rinderpest,” Hills wrote. “Well you’ve got to know,” the proprietor told him.
The method by which he sourced his information for the eventual series was an intensive search in the Port Elizabeth Library.“For I could claim no credit for any prior knowledge of the subject.”
Next time: Hills leaves Port Elizabeth for the Rand goldfields at Krugersdorp
(Article: Carol Stier).
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