I have added a couple of replies to the post about Geoffrey Charlesworth, in the form of comments below the entry. Click here and scroll down to view them.
It also looks like the riddle of whether one or two submarines were scrapped in Durban after WWII has been solved. See John Taylor’s comment here.
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My correspondent Chris Charlesworth (who recently sent info about his Durban postcard page) has asked me to publish a request about the paintings of his uncle, the artist Geoffrey Charlesworth. Chris wrote:
I’m collecting photos of paintings by my cousin Geoffrey Terence Charlesworth, , born 17 July 1930. Died April 2009. I’ll create an album of them on my website. Geoffrey was a reclusive man and died alone in his Point Road Flat. He lay for many days and, when discovered, the Coroner was unable to trace relatives.
You see, his twin Barbara had died some months before. Eventually they traced his younger sister, Merle, in Johannesburg. He was survived by Merle & elder brother John. John subsequently passed away in Cape Town, in August 2011.
If anyone out there owns his any of his paintings, please can they take photos of them & email them to me ?
My regular correspondent William Paterson has a query that he hopes other readers can help him out with. He wrote:
Can anyone provide info on The Firefly Club on the Bluff (near the old whaling station) and the Cosmo Club on the corner of Old Fort Road? The Firefly could only be reached by driving across Edwin Swales and then turning left at sea level, to follow the course of the bay towards the old whaling slipway.
The Cosmo was emblazoned with a “COSMO” neon sign which flashed on and off – like the “Jesus Red” sign atop a single storey building over the road, beyond a vacant patch of ground, as if heading towards the Berea.
In my youth we went to both places and thought we were being frightfully liberated. The (upstairs) Cosmo Club was not so very far from the Butterworth Hotel on Soldiers Way (there was a girl who stripped there with a python, I seem to recall).
The stripper with the python sounds like Glenda Kemp. Anyone who can throw some light on those two hang-outs, or the possibly even more notorious Smugglers’ Inn, is welcome to leave a comment below, or contact me here.
More from my late father’s scrapbook. He not only took pictures but luckily took the time to date them as well. This picture of my sister and I standing in front of the Durban Cenotaph in January 1949 raises some questions.
My sister and I had arrived in Durban in September 1948, so we had been in South Africa a mere 4 months. What has always intrigued me is that many years later I was led to believe that when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and the two Princesses visited Durban in 1947, they officially opened the Memorial Gates that now surround the Cenotaph.
The Cenotaph dates back to the 1920s and is a war memorial ostensibly to the War Dead of World War One. This photo shows that there were no walls erected yet around the Cenotaph and the gates directly in front of the Cenotaph are non existent, roughly 2 years after the Royal Tour. Can anyone throw any light on when the actual walling and the erection of the gates with the the two lions on either corner, were actually completed and opened?
There are two plaques either side of the memorial gates directly in front of the Cenotaph. This is the left hand side one commemorating the opening of the gates in 1947. However from the picture above you can see that in 1949 nothing had been erected yet, hence my query.
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REPLY FROM MALCOLM WESSSON – 3/11/2011
Courtesy Malcolm Wesson.
The Gates of Memory at the Durban Cenotaph were opened on 20 March, 1947, by King George VI, during the Royal Tour of South Africa of that year. The photograph is from a souvenir booklet of the tour.
The gates are on the axis of the Cenotaph. Gerald’s photograph, above, is taken well to the left of this axis and gates. The balance of the masonry work was completed later.
We’re nothing if not catholic in our interests here at Facts About Durban. This time it’s the riddle of one [or two] submarines which was [were] scuttled off Durban after WWII. I first became aware that at least one submarine had been scuttled after being sent a link to a picture of HMS Otus. The accompanying blurb said that the vessel had ended her days off Durban but, before I could save the picture, it was removed from the Web.
There things rested until a message from reader Warwick Chapman asking about the submarines HMS Otus and HMS Osiris and quoting from an article which said that both had been scuttled off Durban. Warwick then apparently put out the word on Twitter and received a reply from Sioux McKenna, sister of Grant McKenna who once worked for the museums department of the Ethekwini Municipality. She quoted Grant as follows:
“They were used for training in anti-submarine activities, and were stationed in Durban, which was where the SA Navy training was conducted [Simonstown was a RN base, and wasn’t used for seagoing training of this nature, because enemy submarines were operating there]. There are a couple of photos of HMS Osiris around, either at the Local History Museum or at Killie Campbell – I can’t remember. Otus is a mystery – I never spent time trying to confirm that she was scuttled in Durban, and saw some reports that she was cut up for scrap. Certainly I saw her Asdic board at a shop on Victoria embankment [in Durban. Ed.] in 2002; it was bought by someone on a cruise ship – nice souvenir! Their fuel tanks were prone to leaking when depth-charged, hence the decision not to keep them.”
The Submarine Heritage Centre website confirms that HMS Osiris (launched 1928) was based in Durban and scuttled there, but says she was the only one of the Odin Class submarines to survive the war.
There are many references on this site to vessels being deliberately scuttled, once they had reached their ‘sell by’ date, but I’m still amazed to think there was a time when this practice was more economical than breaking them up for scrap.
Can any reader throw more light on the Osiris/Otus mystery, or contribute a picture or two?
I have had an interesting note from my informant Pat Sligo. He wrote:
As an old banana boy, I was most interested in your website and if you are interested, may I add a few comments about my experiences as an Air Cadet with 35 Squadron. I am also enclosing a pic of the Ovington Court my father took a few days after the wreck, when the stern-mounted defensive gun, and some of the cargo had been removed – some debris can still be seen on the beach.
Pat’s memories of his experiences as an air cadet with 35 Squadron have been put up on their own page. The picture of the Ovington Court has been added to the bottom of the Ovington Court page.
The previous post by guest diarist Gerald Buttigieg is the first in the diary which takes advantage of a WordPress feature that allows you to hide part of a long entry, but still leave it accessible when anyone wants to read it. The idea is to keep the length of the front page within reasonable bounds, but not to limit authors in any way.
The trick is to click the Continue Reading link at the bottom of any abbreviated entry and the whole article will be displayed for you,
My late father in law, Arch Black was born in Durban in 1914. He went to Redhill Primary followed by DHS, then with the noted A.S. Langley as Head. He worked for the City Engineers Dept. till he retired having joined after being demobbed in 1945. He died in Durban in 1982. Arch was always very fond of his “home town” often remarking of the changes he had seen in Durban in his lifetime. Between 1960 and 1975, Arch started a collection of scrap books filled with cuttings from the Durban newspapers. I am in possession of these books today and they recall many incidents pertaining to Durban probably now long forgotten. Being a young adult then, they are also of my time and probably most of you Durbanites now in your mid sixties. So let’s recall the past and see if you recall what happened or was happening in 1961, 50 long years ago.
