Author: Grocott's Mail Contributors

By Natasha Pinto “I don’t lecture; I hold conversations,” was Graca Machel’s opening disclaimer at her talk in Grahamstown on Thursday night. Her conversation on this occasion dealt with what African identity looks like in both a business and social context under the topic, ‘Rebooting a value-based society’. Machel delivered the Thabo Makgoba Development Trust annual lecture hosted by the Rhodes University Business School crowd to a large audience of Rhodes University students, schoolchildren and members of the public. The School’s Director Professor Owen Skae introduced her, along with an extensive list of accolades. The former first lady believes African identity identity is a…

Welcome to the latest instalment of Life at the SPCA. The last couple of months have continued to be challenging, but have seen another successful prosecution and huge improvements in your SPCA Centre, including completion of the borehole and a very generous donation from many businesses and members of the general public, of the solar pump and solar array needed to provide water to the SPCA Centre. The latest prosecution relates to a horrific case of puppies being bludgeoned to death with bricks by their owner who justified his actions by saying that he was drunk and even assaulted SPCA…

The judiciary, with its challenges, still enjoys legitimacy across the board. Everyone turns to it when seeking a just and fair outcome. As South Africans we need to commend ourselves for having such a resilient platform that has resisted multiple attempts to domesticate it. True leaders are seen during tumultuous and intimidating times. We need to salute the Constitutional Court Judges, the Appellate division and the High Courts in particular for defending our democratic project under trying circumstances. Men and women of character have shown their courage in defending and protecting what’s right. The defence of the oath of office…

Pre-paid meters Following the urgent message at the end of September for all pre-paid electricity customers to send their up to date contact details to Makana Finance Directorate (prepaid@makana.gov.za), it appears that just over half of customers have complied. The Finance Directorate are still committed to collecting as much of this data as possible without resorting to disconnecting customers.  If you use a pre-paid meter and have not sent in your details, or you have tenants who have not complied, please do so soon.  Customers who ignore the requirement will eventually be inconvenienced through disconnection and then face a re-connection…

GROCOTT’S MAIL, FRIDAY 06 OCTOBER 110 YEARS AGO IN GROCOTT’S MAIL: “A Texas correspondent,” said Grocott’s of 4 October 1907, “informs us that little Minnie Moody, aged two years, recently figured in the most remarkable incident that has occurred in that remarkable country. The baby was standing upon the verandah of the hotel when an Italian approached, carrying eighty-five toy balloons. The little girl manifested a desire for the toys, and the vendor, thinking to please her, tied the entire bunch about her waist. Immediately the baby was gently lifted from the high portico and swept beyond reach. A fresh…

Japan versus Russia and the Beginnings of Globalisation. “There is not one sensible man or woman in a million who will begrudge Japan her happiness in the present and her hopefulness as to the future. After her splendid and unbroken success on sea and land in her death struggle with one of the greatest powers in the world…” So began a somewhat breathless editorial in the Grocott’s Mail of 27 October 1905. But why would Grahamstown care about Japan in 1905? Japan was still an almost unimaginably exotic country, months away by ship, involved in conflicts very removed from anything…

Events: 1720: The Royal Navy captures the pirate Captain “Calico Jack” Rackham off the coast of Jamaica. 1803: The United States Senate ratifies the purchase of Louisiana. 1973: The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II. 2011: Members of the National Transitional Council capture and kill former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Births: 1632: Christopher Wren, designer of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. 1854: Arthur Rimbaud, French poet. 1882: Bela Lugosi, Hungarian-American actor best known for portraying Dracula in a number of films. 1885: Jelly Roll Morton, American pianist, composer and bandleader. 1936: Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panther…

110 years ago in Grocott’s Mail… in the archives with Kylie van Zyl In October and November 1907, Grahamstown was the scene of a sad and bizarre murder trial that occupied hundreds of column inches in both Grocott’s Mail and its rival, the now-defunct Graham’s Town Journal. The murder was never really solved, for all that one man was brought to trial three times, and the mystery continues to this day. On Tuesday 8 October, an 11-year-old girl named Edith Pinnock was sent by her mother to buy potted meat and a loaf of bread. They lived at the Cradock Toll…

Lions, Donkeys and Long Grass: Lions in Limpopo Spring 1907 was not a great time to be a donkey in northwestern South Africa. The discovery of gold in the area, then known as the Zoutpansberg, had brought miners and mining companies up to the remote subtropical region, and the beast-of-burden of choice for the transport riders and merchants working in the area was donkeys. Donkeys need less food than horses and do more with it, as well as being less prone to illness (they still do better with good food and decent veterinary care, though). Being a desert-adapted species descended…

There are two things which even the best upbringing and education cannot provide: a remedy for madness and a gene for quick adaptation. Following centuries of rule by monarchs, minorities, capitalists and colonialists, both India in 1947 and South Africa in 1994 spluttered into an uneasy democracy. But not before countless deaths and lots of talking. In a few days of nervous expectation, aeons of adapted social systems were transformed. It was like an infant running a marathon before learning how to walk. It was madness before adaptation. Decades after the illusion of freedom, these countries are still plagued by…