#JourneyTo100Years: Hills falls in love with South Africans
Any fears that I might be unhappy in South Africa were soon set at rest. It was a case of love at first sight.
Benoni City Times founder William Hills did not know what to expect when he landed in Algoa Bay, four weeks after setting sail from London.
He had tried to pick up a bit of information on what to expect from a few old-timers on board and was “keyed up to adventure”.
“What would be our reception in a new land of which we knew nothing and in which we had not a relation or friend?” he wondered in a story in the City Times in 1940 about his life as a journalist.
“Any fears that I might be unhappy in South Africa were soon set at rest. It was a case of love at first sight. Everyone was so kind and helpful and considerate.”
However, he was surprised to learn that not all of his countrymen were popular and that the locals called them “beastly colonials” because of their attitude.
“Of course coming from London, I should have felt that I was destined to bring the blessings of culture to a dark land, but my new friends did not appear impressed.
“If there was any darkness they felt it was in London and not South Africa, which speaking, is more or less correct, especially when there is bad fog.”
Hills and his 16-year-old brother, George, who had accompanied him, soon also realised that the clothes they had brought with them were singularly unsuited to South Africa and netted a few shillings by selling the lot.
“I mention this question of dress because almost every immigrant of what is now called the ‘white-collar class’ fell into the same trap, and as hastily as we did discard wear ludicrously out-of-keeping with a country like South Africa.”
The ladies of 1895 society, who persisted in dressing to the nines, “would have fainted – they used to faint in those days – could they have projected themselves forward to the Port Elizabeth of today with its mixed bathing and unabashed legs”, Hills wrote.
“No one was supposed to know a lady had legs in the nineties.”
Next time: Getting down to work
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