A HISTORY OF WATERFALL
An article written by Mr J Grace April 1990
The history of the Waterfall area is really just an extension of the history of what, in the bad old good days, was known as Inanda Road. Inanda Road then as now began at the centre spot in Hillcrest and the tar road led through the gurn trees past the station and over the railway bridge. That was the end of the tar; after that, a typical dirt road or stony, and at different times of the year nearly 300mm deep in mud or producing young sand storms.
In those times, lnanda Road was a pleasant place. It ran from the railway bridge some 24km to van Niekerk store at Elangeni, at the border of the African reserve. At night, as one crossed the railway line there might be seen a light far away over on the right, at the Belvedere farm (now very close to the High School) and later (most of these kilometers through gum plantation — now deposed in favour of Natal weed, sugar cane.) Essop perchance showed a light at his store (on the land where further on the left, the Dinkelman farmstead (now occupied by Obby Organ) From there again pitch darkness until one came up the rise towards Cascades Farm (Grace's) and Polda (Howes). This little enclave of altogether about 100 acres between what is now Crestholme Drive, along past the Waterfall Garage on to the right hand side of Forest Drive epitomizes what "Inanda Road" was all about.
Anther feature of life on Inanda Road in those days was the fact that daily routine was closely tied to transport. In brief, there was very little. Van Niekerk's had a bus, a genuine 64 seater, which went to and from his store to HilIcrest 2 or 3 times daily. If the passing of this monster (bear in mind that Inanda Road was only about 5m wide in those days) did not remind you of the time, then there was another old faithful, the bread delivery truck from Wareings. This stopped and sold a loaf or two at each property, and as a bhansela, it carried the morning Mercury. However, there was more to 'public transport', there was a school bus.
The school bus had as important a part in the daily routine as Van's bus and Wareings bread truck. The school bus was, as were many things back in the early 1950's, ex-army, in this case an open- sided Ford 3 tonner lorry. Said lorry probably carried a platoon of infantrymen during its prime, abut there were only 8 or 10 school kids in the areas so there was plenty of space on the back, although it was open. No kid wanted to sit in the cab because the driver/owner/operator of that bus was Henry Spencer ... and Henry took NO nonsense at all, whatsoever. The bus operated come hail, rain or anything else, and the livestock was delivered to Kloof School (no Hillcrest Forest View establishments then.)
There were occasions when the educable members of the juvenile fraternity did not get to school; on these occasions it was quite probably that the adult commuters also did not get to work in Durban (there was precious little"commerce in Pinctown then) and the reason herefor was quite simple. The Nkutu River crossed Inand,a Road at the bottom of Mairovitz Hill over a ford, a concrete slab under which the river went 1m over the causeway and while it was doing this. Hillcrest end down to Van's Elangeni store — turned into a muddy mess that even the smarty scrambler afficionados of today could not have navigated. Two special stretches remain in mind; about 500m from Brackenhill road past what was then "Chicken": Lacon-Allen's farm to the Fig Tree farm entrance, and on either side of the Nkutu. Here the mud might be axle deep and not even loaded bakkies (in those days called pick-ups) could make it.
Inevitably the next innovation was the coming of the tar road. This intrusion commenced in the early 1960s with a first a sealed surface and later proper bedded surfacing. And there were cat's eyes, so that except in exceptionally thick mist, the passenger did not have to walk next to the vehicle shining a torch on the grass alongside to direct the driver. At first the tar ended at Crestholmc Drive turnoff; a few years later it was ex/ended to Fripp's gate and finally all the way down Inanda road.
The topical joke at that time was to the effect that "the next thing you know, we will have street lights" ... and we got them. And then automatic telephones. And at much the same time, the pleasures of the Pinetown Regional Water Supply.
Until that time, believe it or not, all the area relied on water from the Nlcutu river for all purposes; drinking, cooking, washing, flushing the loo (we all had that convenience; no long drop existed in Inanda Road that I know of) watering stock and plants. Each property had a pump on the river and these pushed water to where it was required. Drinking water was not boiled, but it might have been passed through a filter of some sort to remove suspended particles, particularly when the river was running high. And of drinking the water of the Nkutu, quite frequently the jongspan of the area would congregate at Grace's place and go down to swim in the natural rock pool below the top falls. It was a pleasure to share the place with a resident population of between 30 or 40 lenguaans - some up to 1.8m long - and the fishes. These were small things, about 60mm long, but there were so many of them and fresh water crabs, that they could be caught (and immediately released) by submerging a towel and waiting for them to swim over it. The towel was then hauled up by its four corners, the 'catch' counted, and the next kid had his or her turn.
Nobody contracted bilharzia because of immersion in the Nkutu. The river flowed year in and year out, summer and winter, until, of course, civilization reached the area. The Nkutu had its womb in an extensive marsh in the area which is not West Riding, below Botha's Hill and Inanda Road just before one reaches Albany Farm from Hillcrest. Years ago the watercourse flowed unobstructed for several kilometers until it reached the concrete dam below Freddie Dinkelman's farm, and thereafter it ran unobstructed until its confluence with the Umgeni river.
However along came the Property Developer who brought bulldozers. The marsh was drained, and all the houses in the basin of West Riding and the origin of the Nkutu is now gone. For the first time in living memory the Nkutu stopped flowing during the drought of 1982.
Life had to go on, though. And that is where the party line telephone played its part, because if you hear one long/two shorts at say, lOpm, you could be fairly sure that Grace was in trouble. Imagine your neighbours picking up their phones to hear the news, and without asking most turned out to help. Ropes and chains were waded across the causeway, and the stuck truck was towed to the home side. But that was life then, it might well have been 11pm or later by time all got back to bed, but at sometime between 4 and 5am all were back on the road to Durban, many of them to make a tour of hotel and labourer's compound kitchens to collect drums of refuse (for pig swill) before reporting to their offices.
Fire is the opposite to water, but its effect on nieghbours was in those days much the same. Nobody need to phone and say `my place is on fire' because anybody who saw a veld fire over towards so and so's place would have rounded up his resident labourers plus wet sacks or whatever firebeaters, and headed for the problem area.
Times change — widely this is regarded as 'progress — and in the early 60's/late 50's ESKOM arrived with a bountiful supply of electricity. Previously candles were the order of the bathroom and loos, paraffin 'Hurricane' lamps in bedrooms or kitchen while lounge/diningroom was lit by brilliant Aladdin lamps (which provide a light much more intense than anything but an electric spotlamp.) Some more modern homesteads had 32-volt power supplied by a motor that drowned all other sounds, in and out of the house and supplied a bank of batteries that might have numbered a dozen or more. Providing the household did not switch on more than 4 or 5 of the 32-volt lights at a time, a glimmer could be had in those 4 or 5 areas. Electricity was then, as now, not cheap. Customers had to pay a premium per pole along the length of the supply line, which was not too bad if a few others were along the way to share the cost; but if your property was at the end of the run and it required 10 poles (at about ten pounds per pole) to get to you ... it was an expensive luxury.
Progress, as it is called, is inevitable and unavoidable, and it has brought its own signs. Now that the area has tarred roads, street lights, piped water, push button telephones and whatever else, the users are subject to the detrimental effects of power failures, storms that drop trees on the telephone wires, and thereby isolate whole areas, and there are people problems. There are too many people. Until sometime in the early 1960's there was not a burglar guard in the area, there being no need for them; it was quite safe to leave the house open, and in summer people slept with the doors and windows open. h was quite safe walking at any time of night or day. As a teenager back in the later 1950's, I frequently walked the 12km road to Hillcrest without passing another soul on the road, not even an African on a bicycle, let alone a motor vehicle. And on many occasions after attending parties in Hillcrest and Kloof I walked home. 1 never carried a torch and much less a gun (the thought never even occurred to me to do so) and yet never a moment of anxiety during the two to three hours it might have taken to get to bed!
Which is where I am heading now, as soon as I have locked the doors, switched on the security lights, set the burglar alarm, and checked that the torch and shotgun are in the appointed place
An article written by Mr J Grace April 1990
The history of the Waterfall area is really just an extension of the history of what, in the bad old good days, was known as Inanda Road. Inanda Road then as now began at the centre spot in Hillcrest and the tar road led through the gurn trees past the station and over the railway bridge. That was the end of the tar; after that, a typical dirt road or stony, and at different times of the year nearly 300mm deep in mud or producing young sand storms.
In those times, lnanda Road was a pleasant place. It ran from the railway bridge some 24km to van Niekerk store at Elangeni, at the border of the African reserve. At night, as one crossed the railway line there might be seen a light far away over on the right, at the Belvedere farm (now very close to the High School) and later (most of these kilometers through gum plantation — now deposed in favour of Natal weed, sugar cane.) Essop perchance showed a light at his store (on the land where further on the left, the Dinkelman farmstead (now occupied by Obby Organ) From there again pitch darkness until one came up the rise towards Cascades Farm (Grace's) and Polda (Howes). This little enclave of altogether about 100 acres between what is now Crestholme Drive, along past the Waterfall Garage on to the right hand side of Forest Drive epitomizes what "Inanda Road" was all about.
Anther feature of life on Inanda Road in those days was the fact that daily routine was closely tied to transport. In brief, there was very little. Van Niekerk's had a bus, a genuine 64 seater, which went to and from his store to HilIcrest 2 or 3 times daily. If the passing of this monster (bear in mind that Inanda Road was only about 5m wide in those days) did not remind you of the time, then there was another old faithful, the bread delivery truck from Wareings. This stopped and sold a loaf or two at each property, and as a bhansela, it carried the morning Mercury. However, there was more to 'public transport', there was a school bus.
The school bus had as important a part in the daily routine as Van's bus and Wareings bread truck. The school bus was, as were many things back in the early 1950's, ex-army, in this case an open- sided Ford 3 tonner lorry. Said lorry probably carried a platoon of infantrymen during its prime, abut there were only 8 or 10 school kids in the areas so there was plenty of space on the back, although it was open. No kid wanted to sit in the cab because the driver/owner/operator of that bus was Henry Spencer ... and Henry took NO nonsense at all, whatsoever. The bus operated come hail, rain or anything else, and the livestock was delivered to Kloof School (no Hillcrest Forest View establishments then.)
There were occasions when the educable members of the juvenile fraternity did not get to school; on these occasions it was quite probably that the adult commuters also did not get to work in Durban (there was precious little"commerce in Pinctown then) and the reason herefor was quite simple. The Nkutu River crossed Inand,a Road at the bottom of Mairovitz Hill over a ford, a concrete slab under which the river went 1m over the causeway and while it was doing this. Hillcrest end down to Van's Elangeni store — turned into a muddy mess that even the smarty scrambler afficionados of today could not have navigated. Two special stretches remain in mind; about 500m from Brackenhill road past what was then "Chicken": Lacon-Allen's farm to the Fig Tree farm entrance, and on either side of the Nkutu. Here the mud might be axle deep and not even loaded bakkies (in those days called pick-ups) could make it.
Inevitably the next innovation was the coming of the tar road. This intrusion commenced in the early 1960s with a first a sealed surface and later proper bedded surfacing. And there were cat's eyes, so that except in exceptionally thick mist, the passenger did not have to walk next to the vehicle shining a torch on the grass alongside to direct the driver. At first the tar ended at Crestholmc Drive turnoff; a few years later it was ex/ended to Fripp's gate and finally all the way down Inanda road.
The topical joke at that time was to the effect that "the next thing you know, we will have street lights" ... and we got them. And then automatic telephones. And at much the same time, the pleasures of the Pinetown Regional Water Supply.
Until that time, believe it or not, all the area relied on water from the Nlcutu river for all purposes; drinking, cooking, washing, flushing the loo (we all had that convenience; no long drop existed in Inanda Road that I know of) watering stock and plants. Each property had a pump on the river and these pushed water to where it was required. Drinking water was not boiled, but it might have been passed through a filter of some sort to remove suspended particles, particularly when the river was running high. And of drinking the water of the Nkutu, quite frequently the jongspan of the area would congregate at Grace's place and go down to swim in the natural rock pool below the top falls. It was a pleasure to share the place with a resident population of between 30 or 40 lenguaans - some up to 1.8m long - and the fishes. These were small things, about 60mm long, but there were so many of them and fresh water crabs, that they could be caught (and immediately released) by submerging a towel and waiting for them to swim over it. The towel was then hauled up by its four corners, the 'catch' counted, and the next kid had his or her turn.
Nobody contracted bilharzia because of immersion in the Nkutu. The river flowed year in and year out, summer and winter, until, of course, civilization reached the area. The Nkutu had its womb in an extensive marsh in the area which is not West Riding, below Botha's Hill and Inanda Road just before one reaches Albany Farm from Hillcrest. Years ago the watercourse flowed unobstructed for several kilometers until it reached the concrete dam below Freddie Dinkelman's farm, and thereafter it ran unobstructed until its confluence with the Umgeni river.
However along came the Property Developer who brought bulldozers. The marsh was drained, and all the houses in the basin of West Riding and the origin of the Nkutu is now gone. For the first time in living memory the Nkutu stopped flowing during the drought of 1982.
Life had to go on, though. And that is where the party line telephone played its part, because if you hear one long/two shorts at say, lOpm, you could be fairly sure that Grace was in trouble. Imagine your neighbours picking up their phones to hear the news, and without asking most turned out to help. Ropes and chains were waded across the causeway, and the stuck truck was towed to the home side. But that was life then, it might well have been 11pm or later by time all got back to bed, but at sometime between 4 and 5am all were back on the road to Durban, many of them to make a tour of hotel and labourer's compound kitchens to collect drums of refuse (for pig swill) before reporting to their offices.
Fire is the opposite to water, but its effect on nieghbours was in those days much the same. Nobody need to phone and say `my place is on fire' because anybody who saw a veld fire over towards so and so's place would have rounded up his resident labourers plus wet sacks or whatever firebeaters, and headed for the problem area.
Times change — widely this is regarded as 'progress — and in the early 60's/late 50's ESKOM arrived with a bountiful supply of electricity. Previously candles were the order of the bathroom and loos, paraffin 'Hurricane' lamps in bedrooms or kitchen while lounge/diningroom was lit by brilliant Aladdin lamps (which provide a light much more intense than anything but an electric spotlamp.) Some more modern homesteads had 32-volt power supplied by a motor that drowned all other sounds, in and out of the house and supplied a bank of batteries that might have numbered a dozen or more. Providing the household did not switch on more than 4 or 5 of the 32-volt lights at a time, a glimmer could be had in those 4 or 5 areas. Electricity was then, as now, not cheap. Customers had to pay a premium per pole along the length of the supply line, which was not too bad if a few others were along the way to share the cost; but if your property was at the end of the run and it required 10 poles (at about ten pounds per pole) to get to you ... it was an expensive luxury.
Progress, as it is called, is inevitable and unavoidable, and it has brought its own signs. Now that the area has tarred roads, street lights, piped water, push button telephones and whatever else, the users are subject to the detrimental effects of power failures, storms that drop trees on the telephone wires, and thereby isolate whole areas, and there are people problems. There are too many people. Until sometime in the early 1960's there was not a burglar guard in the area, there being no need for them; it was quite safe to leave the house open, and in summer people slept with the doors and windows open. h was quite safe walking at any time of night or day. As a teenager back in the later 1950's, I frequently walked the 12km road to Hillcrest without passing another soul on the road, not even an African on a bicycle, let alone a motor vehicle. And on many occasions after attending parties in Hillcrest and Kloof I walked home. 1 never carried a torch and much less a gun (the thought never even occurred to me to do so) and yet never a moment of anxiety during the two to three hours it might have taken to get to bed!
Which is where I am heading now, as soon as I have locked the doors, switched on the security lights, set the burglar alarm, and checked that the torch and shotgun are in the appointed place