Here are excerpts from his address.
August 1932 was the date when the Bluff officially became a suburb of Durban. Up until then it languished in a legal limbo. It was not subject to Durban’s by-laws and so as regards buildings, trade and regulations on many issues, liquor in particular, the Bluff peninsula was largely an unregulated zone. The only exceptions were where matters concerned the Harbour Board, the Indian Immigrants Trust Board and the ministry of Lands and Works.
Before the establishment of the railway in 1898 and the regular ferry service across the bay, getting to the Bluff on foot or on horseback was an arduous undertaking. Once the intrepid resident or visitor had skirted around the mangroves, he was faced with the dense bush and forest of the Bluff peninsula, wild and untamed.
One of the views held about the Bluff in that pre-1932 period, concerned the availability of liquor. In May 1905 the remark was made in a letter published in the Mercury that on a Sunday, the only place a man could buy a drink was if he took the ferry across the bay and went to the Public House Trust on the Bluff headland. In a complimentary kind of way, the letter writer stated: “Durban on a Sunday is one of the dullest places on earth. Beyond a trip to the Umgeni or to the Bluff, there is practically nowhere to go by way of relaxation.”
The negative side of that period saw the Bluff as a dumping ground or as a place where environmentally undesirable pursuits could be established. The first of these was the quarantine station on the Bluff headland for indentured Indian immigrants. Smallpox was an ever-present fear in those days. Then in the 1890s a leper colony was established. By the early twentieth century, the coaling wharf was relocated from the Point to the Bluff side of the bay. Around 1905, the idea of establishing a jail on the Bluff was discussed, but nothing came of it. The worst of the negatives was the vile smell of the whaling station, which wafted across the entire suburb when the north east wind blew. So the Bluff was regarded as a place to consign dirty, smelly activities along with health risks.
The isolation and unregulated state of the Bluff caused it to be regarded as rural. This was evident from the ‘Country Notes’ columns in the press which referred to Seaview, Montclair and the Bluff along with news of country villages like Richmond, Umzinto and Greytown. As recently as 1956, Bluff councillor Sidney Smith noted that many at City Hall regarded the Bluff as ‘the bundu’.
When serious residential interest came to be shown in the Bluff in the early twentieth century, it was concentrated mostly in just two areas – Fynnlands and Wentworth. In between there were isolated homesteads in the central Bluff area like the Garcins and Dobles near the Catholic mission station. Of course, once the Bluff was incorporated into Durban, infrastructure progress followed, but at a slow pace which caused many complaints. As late as 1958, for example, Sormany Road was still an untarred track with grass growing in the middle.
Although much reference is made in the book to the Bluff’s dense bush, trees and foliage, it is disturbing to witness the transformation of a once leafy suburb into an environment of concrete and asphalt.
In an age of renaming, the observation was made that the Bluff should be promoted for what it is – a peninsula. As a distinct geographical feature, it should be marketed as the Peninsula.
Copies of Bluff Peninsula are available from Ink.Com at Wakefields Centre.
