Part 13 in our series on William Hills: Miners, miners everywhere!
There were few women in Krugersdorp in those days.
Here was a mining camp that almost fulfilled his dreams of “The Wild and Woolly West” of the stories, William Hills wrote of savouring the atmosphere of Krugersdorp on a cool evening after his arrival there in 1897.
“Miners, miners everywhere. The bars were packed and there were far more bars in those days than now,” the Benoni City Times founder wrote in 1940, in a story about his life as a journalist.
“Voices raised in song, if not harmony, floated out from the hotels together with an aroma of ‘best brewed’, which must have proved an irresistible lure to the thirsty man from overseas, for the miners were keen on imported beer whatever the cost.”
Mixed with the people of the mines were the Dutch of the town and of the farms.
“We never called them Afrikaners in those days.”
ALSO READ: Part 12 in our William Hills series: The journey to Krugersdorp
They were grave, meditative men with long beards and whiskers, wearing much the same clothing as the miners, except for their shoes and hats.
“Their soft felt hats, instead of being brought into a double peak were worn pushed down flat on the head and the hat ribbons on older men were generally concealed by a rusty whip of crepe, an armlet of the same material being wound around the coat sleeve.”
There were few women in Krugersdorp in those days.
“… The excitement was great when a fair visitor made her appearance and trying to look as if unconscious of general admiration daintily picked up her long dress to cross the dusty or muddy road.
“It was a man’s town, as I was very soon to find out.”
The Krugersdorp Times was in a low stone building, which used to be a house, with a galvanised iron roof and a verandah on two sides, on the corner opposite the Grand Hotel.
Its proprietor Charlie Deecker was an old-time journalist, short and stout with grey hair and a clipped grey moustache, beaming good humour beneath his square bowler hat.
He was famous for having published the News of the Camp during the siege of Pretoria in the first Boer war.
When gold was discovered, he went to Johannesburg, where he started either the first, or one of the first, newspapers on the Rand, and when that went down moved to Krugersdorp.
Next time: Krugersdorp was a great place for newspapers
(Article: Carol Stier)
ALSO READ: Part 10 in our William Hills series: Hills experiences ‘anxious moments’ at Vereeniging
