Bluff news from the 1950s – Part 6

In case you missed it, read from the beginning of the series:

Bluff News from the 1950s – PART 1
Bluff News from the 1950s – PART 2
Bluff News from the 1950s – PART 3
Bluff News from the 1950s – PART 4
Bluff News from the 1950s – PART 5

Bluff’s mosquito menace.

FOR over a year – from March 1956 until July 1957 – the issue that kept the Bluff in the news was its mosquito plague.

Described as the worst mosquito invasion in 30 years, angry housewives demanded that the city Health Department spray the swamps in the valley which were the main source of the problem.

A resident in the Kings Rest area said at night their ceilings were black with mosquitoes and that a net over their baby’s cot was essential (Mercury, March 29, 1956).

The plague eased off somewhat during the winter months when the Council mulled over how to effect a permanent solution. Draining the swamp was seen as the answer but at an estimated cost of £200,000, it was out of the question. Hand-spraying had limited effect because of the extent of the Happy Valley and Van Riebeeck Park swamps- some 135 acres, the water depth and access through the reeds. Nonetheless, the chairman of the Health Committee, Councillor Frank Cheek, promised that the effect of work gangs cutting away the forest of reeds where the mosquitoes bred would improve the situation (Mercury, July 31; August 14 and 16).

Predictably, the issue generated many suggestions. Local Councillor Spanier Marson rather ludicrously suggested that all the reeds be cleared away and the swamps converted into a lake. More sensibly, a letter writer who signed himself “Well Bitten,” proposed the use of crop-spraying aircraft (Mercury, August 27). In September the City Engineer, Alec Kinmont put forward a plan to drain the swamps through a tunnel entering the sea south of Anstey’s Beach at a cost of £47,000. Wary of the bureaucratic dithering and the cost involved, John Sowden of Oriel Road proposed a cheap, instant solution – spend £3. 15 shillings on a drum of oil and spray the whole swamp from the air. RJ Culverwell of Glenardle Road agreed (September 5, 7 and 12).

The Bluff’s mosquito issue gave the Mercury’s cartoonist, Robin, something to satirise. Headed “Blitz on the Bluff,” he showed the City Engineer aiming a £47,000 missile at a mosquito with a ratepayer querying the expense (September 9). Meanwhile heads of Council departments scurried around to see what savings they could extract to meet the £47,000 needed. It was even proposed that the minister of Finance be approached if there was a shortfall. But on 21 September, the Mercury reported that the City Council had approved, in principle, the City Engineer’s £47,000 mosquito plan.

For the Bluff’s sitting councillors, Marson and Smith, the mosquito issue proved somewhat awkward. As letter writers to the Mercury pointed out, the councillors had been aware of the problem of mosquitoes for years but had done nothing about it. With a municipal election due in October 1956, the view expressed by a correspondent who signed himself “Many times bitten,” was that it was time for new councillor blood on the Bluff.

Following the October election, first on the list of the council’s new Health Committee was a visit to the Bluff to inspect the mosquito problem. But as summer rolled around again with the threat of a new mosquito onslaught, the question Bluff residents were asking was: When will the municipality stop talking and get busy solving the problem. Not helping was a report in the Sunday Tribune in December about boating club enthusiasts proposing to turn the swamps into a lake for regattas and water skiing. There was even talk of dredging to deepen the water level. Then nature struck back.

Sweltering December heat and heavy rains brought forth millions of mosquitoes, making a mockery of the council’s assertion that matters would improve. A report in the Mercury on January 8, 1957 noted that Bluff housewives were investing in netting to cover beds to keep the mosquitoes at bay. The medical officer of health, Dr English reported a trebling in efforts to hand-spray the swamps. But at official level there was still no consensus on what the solution should be.

Dr English and Dr Ferguson, Natal’s chief regional health officer, were adamant that only complete drainage of the swamps and land reclamation would rid the Bluff of its mosquito problem. But Councillor Cheek, chairman of the Health Committee continued to advocate the conversion of the swamps into a lake. To make matters worse, the new council’s finance committee had clamped down on expenditure. So although the previous council had approved the £47,000 plan of the City Engineer, that money was not actually available. So niggardly was the response of the council to the situation that the £1,000 needed to pay the external consultant engineers on the drainage and tunnel plan could not be found, according to the works committee chairman, Councillor Ted Shaw (Mercury, January 8, 1957).

At the first 1957 meeting of council committees, Councillor Cheek appeared to have come around to accepting that drainage of the swamps was the only real solution. He had also come around to accepting that aerial spraying was likely to be more effective. However, such spraying would have to have the provincial administrator’s approval because it involved low-level flying in a built-up area (Mercury, January 24).

Meanwhile, the mosquito menace continued to afflict Bluff residents. The Sunday Tribune of February 3, 1957 reported a claim by new Bluff Councillor HA Mason that 150 angry mosquito-bitten Bluff residents were going to descend on City Hall unless the Bluff’s mosquito menace was decisively ended. But the report also contained information that health officials had found 34 Bluff properties in which mosquitoes were breeding in ponds, old tyres, tanks or drums. Even more significant was the fact that whereas 26 complaints about mosquitoes had been received from the Bluff in January, double that number of mosquito complaints were received from the Umgeni River area.

A press report dated February 12, 1957 advised that civil aviation authorities had given permission for a Piper Cub aircraft piloted by Captain JH Rautenbach to spray the Bluff swamps with insecticide. A subsequent report on March 20 noted that samples taken from the swamps 24 hours after the spraying showed that larvae and insects were dead and that the aerial spraying had proved highly successful. Interestingly, Captain Rautenbach’s Piper Cub had made 25 mile-long runs at reed-top level over the swamps. So low did he fly that at each reloading of his spray canisters, bits of reed and grass were cleared from the plane’s undercarriage and tail wheel.

Captain Rautenbach’s aerial spraying must have resolved the problem as the record book has no further cuttings concerning the mosquito plague. Closure of the subject came in July 1957 when the council called for tenders for the construction of a canal and a tunnel to drain the Van Riebeeck Park swamp into the sea just south of the main beach at Ansteys (Daily News, July 15, 1957).

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