Last month I reported my Waterford challenge – walking 280 kilometres in a month – was successfully completed. This month I can confirm that I raised the target amount. When I signed up, in 2023, my goal was to raise R67,000, R1,000 for every year I had been alive. Unfortunately, I had some health issues,¹ so only embarked on the challenge on 16th June 2024. Given the delay and the passing of another birthday, I felt morally obliged to raise at least R68,000.

By 16th July I had more than met the target distance, and had walked 315 kilometres. Obviously, the challenge had to be marketed, and donations solicited. This involved numerous emails, Facebook posts and personal contacts. My family, friends and colleagues were magnificent. Over R84,000 has been given by 68 donors. It was generous, and I was delighted. I must give a special ‘shout out’ to David Crush, one of my classmates and a friend since 1970, if not before. He organised my and other challenges and encouraged me throughout the process.

I listened to endless podcasts as I trudged around the suburbs, which made the walks even more enjoyable. My hilly neighbourhood is a plus for fitness and heart health, this is as opposed to Norwich, my other home, which is decidedly flat. I continue to clock up kilometres, trying to average 10 each day. The technology of a Fitbit, which downloads to my phone, is a huge incentive. Being able to measure and then analyse data has always been one of my pleasures. I recognize that this is a niche area. I also note there was not a single day when ‘rain stopped play’.

The last week of August was busy with a range of events. On Tuesday 24th there was a fundraiser for the KwaZulu-Natal Society of the Arts (KZNSA). The society has been in existence since 1905. In 1996 it moved into a magnificent, purpose-built gallery on Bulwer Road. This was designed as a community art gallery to

‘encourage and promote young artists and create a vibrant and stimulating environment in which to exhibit work from around South Africa… collaboration with local artists (and) … a building that achieved maximum flexibility within a very limited budget, and a detailed understanding of the local climate.’²

It is, I believe, good at what it does!

It is battling with funding at present. I have been a member for many years and was instrumental in getting Life Membership as an option. There is a tiny annual fee, R250 per annum, only $14 or £11. Life Membership is only R2,500. The economist in me says I only need to live for 10 years (or 13 if it is discounted), for it to be a good decision. I used the gallery as a venue for my farewell party when I left HEARD,³ the University, and Durban in 2013.

It was a fantastic evening with music from two groups. Opening were Mbusi Ndlela and Siphephelo Bulunga of MPND playing guitars; drums; and indigenous instruments such as umakhweyana, kalimba, mbira and singing istolotolo vocals. They were good, but a little loud for my ears. The second act were the South Jersey Pom-Poms, a group I try to catch when a visit to Durban coincides with their performances. They have some really fun songs and do covers and originals. Information and music is available on their Facebook page.

Bulwer Road retained the original colonial name. It was named after Sir Henry Ernest Gascoyne Bulwer, GCMG (11 December 1836 – 30 September 1914), a colonial administrator and diplomat. He was Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Natal from 1875 to 1880 and Governor of Natal and Special Commissioner for Zulu Affairs from 1882–1885. The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 took place under his watch. The British were heavily defeated at the Battle of Isandlwana but held off the Zulu impis at Rorke’s Drift.⁴ The story of Rorke’s Drift was made into the film Zulu, released in 1964 and starring, among others, Michael Caine. This was where the most Victoria Crosses, 11 in total, were awarded in a single engagement, including one to Swiss citizen Christian Ferdinand Schiess who served in the Natal Native Contingent. He is the only VC recipient not from a Commonwealth nation.

The other social events were book launches. Two were at the wonderful Ike’s Bookshop.⁵ This is a unique Durban institution and is located on the second floor of an old building in Morningside! As well as having a huge collection of antiquarian and secondhand books, it is home to Durban’s best book launches. It is customary for authors to sign the walls at the event. My signature is there for two launches!

The first book was Arjumand Wajid’s, Born to Struggle: A Biography of Fatima Meer, (Oxford University Press, Karachi Pakistan, 2024). The author was born in Pakistan, but lived most of her life in the UK, working for the BBC World Service. I am not looking forward to reading it, for one simple reason, the typeface is too small, I think 10 point or less. In addition, the quality of the printing is not good. There were some mutterings at the launch about the author being a foreigner, the feeling being that it should have been written by a South African, and it not being an ‘authorised’ biography. But it is a record of the struggle as seen through the eyes of an influential woman of Indian descent.

The second launch was Anthony Akerman’s Lucky Bastard, self-published in 2024. I am normally very sniffy about self-published books, but this is a deeply moving, well written book. It is the story of a baby being put up for adoption in Durban in 1949 and only finding out he was adopted when he was ten. ‘It was a seismic event that turned his world upside down. Nobody was who he thought they were’. In South Africa, adoption records were sealed until 1979, so he had no way of tracing his birth mother or father. He grew up in Natal, was educated at an expensive private school, Michael House in the interior of the province, went to Rhodes University and, after army service, went into exile in Amsterdam.

Tolstoy’s opening line in Anna Karenina is: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” As I read this book I wondered if it is possible for adoptive children to be happy. Akerman writes ‘I think most adoptees are outraged when they discover other people know a secret that goes to the heart of their existence, while they’re kept in the dark’. He was given up by his young, unmarried mother and his natural father seems to have tried to put the baby out of his mind. This must be different from being an adopted orphan, yet it points to the complexity of families and the need for communication.

The final event was ‘The Annual Paddy Kearney Memorial Lecture’ at the 1860 Heritage Centre in Grayville. The 2024 lecture was given by Judge Chris Nicholson whom I have known for years, as indeed I had known Paddy. Chris practised as a human rights lawyer and was appointed a high court judge in 1995. His talk reflected on the grotesque inequality in wealth in South Africa, the fact it has still not been addressed, and that 2024 marks 30 years since the end of apartheid. It was moving, well researched and should have made everyone think of what needs to be done. While this can be addressed in South Africa, Chris pointed out part of the answer has to be in better global financial controls and revenue collection. This was also a launch of the book ‘Paddy Kearney: A Prophet for our Times’ by Raymond Perrier (Micromega Publications, Durban, 2024).

The Centre is in a former school, built in 1913, on the edge of the Indian area of Durban.⁶ It was converted into the Heritage Centre to commemorate the arrival of indentured Indian labour in Natal in 1860. Sugar was the ‘white gold’ of the province, but the Zulus were, understandably, unwilling to work for minimal pay in the hot, unpleasant cane fields, living in very poor conditions.

The answer was to import labour from India. Over 150,000 people arrived between 1860 and 1911, when the Indian government banned the practice because of the shocking conditions. There was a requirement that 25 percent of the passengers had to be women. In addition to the manual labourers, other Indian citizens made their way to Natal to service their countrymen, most famously Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948). He moved to South Africa as a lawyer and lived here from 1893 to 1915. The Heritage Centre includes a museum and is well worth visiting. It should be noted that Indian labour was exported all over the world, from Malaysia to Trinidad and Fiji to mention just a few destinations.

There have been other events besides book launches and music. In particular, the birdlife in Durban continues to delight me. A few days ago, I was sitting at my desk when I became aware of two sunbirds that had flown onto my balcony and were inspecting it. I hoped it was not with a view to nesting, but as they have not returned, I suspect they were just curious. It might make sense to attach some feeders to the burglar guards on my window, although the monkeys would, no doubt, take advantage of them. The other ‘bird news’ is that the swallows (or swifts) are back. I saw the darting and swooping for the first time last week. It is a joyful sight.

As it is the first day of September I am going to end now and get this blog into the production process!

1. https://alan-whiteside.com/2023/11/05/cape-town-and-the-rugby-world-cup/
2. https://kznsagallery.co.za/building-and-facilities/
3. HEARD is the Health Economics and HIV and AIDS Research Division
4. https://alan-whiteside.com/2022/05/08/funerals-memorials-and-spring/
5. https://ikesbooks.com/
6. In terms of the Apartheid legislation various parts of the city were allocated to the different races: whites, coloureds and Asians, black populations were, for the most part, forced to live on the outskirts of the cities.