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From Carriers to Climbers: The Cape Province Mountain Club, 1930s to 1960s - An Untold Story

Authors:
  • Independent Researcher

Abstract

The history of mountaineering as a leisure activity among Black communities in Cape Town in all probability dates back to the early twentieth century and was concentrated in those communities (such as District Six and Protea Village below Kirstenbosch), which lived in close proximity to the Table Mountain Chain (i.e. from Signal Hill to Cape Point. Mountaineering as a formal sport which incorporated rock and face climbing however, has a much shorter history among Black communities, dating to the early 1930s when the Cape Province Mountain Club was established. As this paper aims to show, the history of the Club was inextricably linked to the political context of the period 1930s – 1960s, when racial discrimination and segregation was becoming increasingly entrenched, ultimately resulting in its institutionalisation in the country from the 1950s onwards. Moreover, the history of the Club is not only the story of its struggle to establish mountaineering as a formal sporting activity in Cape Town, it is also the story of the impact of sectarianism in Black sporting history – an ugly facet of South Africa’s sport history until the 1960s. Thus the development of the Club suffered, not only as a result of the racism which barred Blacks from membership of the exclusively White Mountain Club of South Africa, but also from the aggressive Coloured nationalism which prevailed before and during the early years of the Club and which, together with the sectarianism rampant in the field of sport, stunted the development of mountaineering in Cape Town. This paper aims to recount and analyse the history of the largely unknown Cape Province Mountain Club within the historical context of political developments during the period of the 1930s – 1960s.
FROM CARRIERS TO CLIMBERS: THE CAPE PROVINCE
MOUNTAIN CLUB, 1930s TO 1960s – AN UNTOLD STORY
FARIEDA KHAN
PAPER FOR THE ‘DECOLONISING SPORT HISTORICAL THEMES’
CONFERENCE
DEPARTMENT OF SPORT SCIENCE, STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY,
STELLENBOSCH, SOUTH AFRICA
15 – 16 SEPTEMBER 2017
1
FROM CARRIERS TO CLIMBERS: THE CAPE PROVINCE MOUNTAIN CLUB, 1930s to
1960s – AN UNTOLD STORY
FARIEDA KHAN
INTRODUCTION
The history of mountaineering as a leisure activity in South Africa dates back to the era of
European exploration which began in the late fifteenth century,1 although mountain walking
for recreation only began later during this era. Having opened up a trading route to the East,
European traders and sailors en route to South East Asia, usually stopped at the Cape to
take on water and barter for cattle. While there, they often took the opportunity to get a
bearing on their surroundings2 or to get some healthy exercise by walking to the summit of
Table Mountain after having been confined to a cramped ship for months on end.3 One of the
earliest written descriptions of a Table Mountain leisure excursion was that undertaken by
the merchant, John Jourdain, who, “for recreation,” walked to the summit of Table Mountain
in 1608 but “found it to be a wearysome journey.”4
While the permanent native inhabitants of the Table Valley, a group of cattle-less Khoi (who
came to be known to the Dutch colonists5 as Strandlopers or Watermen)6 undoubtedly knew
the Table Mountain Chain (i.e. from Signal Hill to Cape Point) intimately,7 this was for
reasons of survival,8 not for the purpose of recreation and exercise. The semi-nomadic Khoi
herders,9 who trekked to the Cape seasonally with their cattle and sheep, also regarded the
Table Valley as their home and were similarly familiar with the mountain chain as they used
its slopes for their encampments and for grazing their cattle.10
The history of mountaineering as a leisure activity among Black communities in Cape Town
in all probability dates back only to the early twentieth century, as during the colonial era, the
poor and the underclasses knew the mountain only as a place of backbreaking toil. The
mountain was a place where they went not to relax, but to chop wood, fetch water and do
the laundry standing knee-deep in icy streams.11 As a consequence of their duties, the most
experienced mountain guides of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries came from the
ranks of the underclasses.12 It was the slaves and servants who acted as guides and porters
to those intent on a “scientific and romantic pilgrimage”13 - that is, the visiting naturalists and
botanists, as well as members of the social elite set on enjoying a lavish “Champagne tiffin”
on the summit.14 It was thus probably only from the early twentieth century onwards that the
youth in communities which lived in close proximity to the Table Mountain Chain (such as
District Six15 and Protea Village16 below Kirstenbosch), began exploring and enjoying the
Table Mountain Chain for recreation purposes.
The history of mountaineering as a formal sport (which incorporated rock and face climbing),
may be traced back to the late nineteenth century and the establishment of the Mountain
Club of South Africa (MCSA) in 1891.17 The Club, which attracted the cream of the social,
professional and governing elite of the Cape,18 did much to establish and develop the sport
of mountaineering in the Western Cape. While the Club’s Constitution did not specifically bar
Blacks from membership,19 this was unthinkable, given the growing extent of social
segregation based on race in the late colonial era.20 Hence the only role for Blacks in the
Club, was a subservient one, as cooks and porters on Western Cape mountains21 (since
MCSA members did not camp on Table Mountain, they had no need of porters in Cape
Town). However, in accordance with its constitutional mandate,22 the Club identified and
2
registered “competent”23 men who could act as carriers and “trustworthy guides”24 to assist
residents and visitors wishing to climb to the summit of Table Mountain, a situation that
prevailed until the turn of the twentieth century and thereafter gradually disappeared.25 This
was hastened by the fact that MCSA members themselves volunteered to act as (unpaid)
guides to visitors,26 and meant that, by the early twentieth century, there was no role for
Blacks in the Cape Town Section of the MCSA, menial or otherwise.
With Blacks effectively barred from membership of the MCSA, mountaineering as a formal
sport (as opposed to the leisure activity of walks on the mountain), has a much shorter
history among Black communities in Cape Town, dating to the early 1930s when the Cape
Province Mountain Club (CPMC) was established. As this paper aims to show, the history of
the CPMC was inextricably linked to the political context of the period 1930s – 1960s, when
racial discrimination and segregation was becoming increasingly entrenched, ultimately
resulting in its institutionalisation in the country from the 1950s onwards. Moreover, the
history of the Club is not only the story of its struggle to establish mountaineering as a formal
sporting activity in Cape Town, it also incorporates the story of the impact of sectarianism on
Black sport – an ugly facet of South African sporting history until the early 1960s. Thus the
development of the Club suffered, not only as a result of the racism which barred Blacks
from membership of the exclusively White Mountain Club of South Africa, but also from the
aggressive Coloured nationalism which prevailed during the 1930s and which, together with
the sectarianism rampant in the field of sport, stunted the development of mountaineering in
Cape Town.
The ultimate objective of this paper is to salvage the history of the largely unknown Cape
Province Mountain Club from obscurity and analyse it within the historical context of political
developments during its first four decades.
THE POLITICAL CONTEXT IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1910 – 1930s: SEGREGATION,
SECTARIANISM AND THE RISE OF COLOURED NATIONALISM
The political unification of the country in 1910 came at the expense of Black South Africans,
whose hopes for the extension of the non-racial Cape franchise for men, were dashed.27 The
betrayal of the hopes of Black South Africans for progress towards political equality signalled
the beginning of relentless restrictions on the land and franchise rights of Black South
Africans, as well as the extension of racial segregation and institutionalised racial
discrimination28 based on the notions of “White dominance and Black subordination” which
had prevailed throughout the nineteenth century.29 In Cape Town, the move towards the
residential segregation of Africans in 1901 was signalled by the removal of Africans from
District Six in 1901 using the bubonic plague as a pretext, 30 and subsequently by the
enactment of the Native Reserve Location Act in 1902.31 These laws foreshadowed
additional attacks on the land and franchise rights of all Black South Africans, such as the
Natives Land Act no.27 of 191332 which rendered Africans aliens in the land of their birth.
This law was followed by a plethora of laws instituting and regulating compulsory residential
segregation, such as the Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923,33 as well as further restrictions
on their already limited franchise rights34 and freedom of movement.35 The effects of these
discriminatory laws against Africans, was to rank Africans (who had the fewest rights of all),
at the bottom of an artificially-created ‘racial hierarchy of privilege’.
3
From the late nineteenth century onwards - a period when legislated racial segregation was
in its infancy and custom dictated the hierarchical nature of colonial society,36 sectarianism
among Black communities began to take root. These communities, exposed to the daily
reality of the stratification of society as the norm, often proceeded to voluntarily implement
segregation based on culture, ethnicity and religion, within their own communities. A strong
contributing factor to the growth of sectarianism in Cape Town was the emergence of a
specific Coloured identity. While it is true that the roots of this identity may be traced back to
colonial times,37 it also needs to be recognised that, in the nineteenth century, the term
‘Coloured’ generally referred to “all non-European people” and that organisations with the
term ‘Coloured’ in their name, such as the ‘Coloured People’s Association of South Africa’
often did not exclude Africans.38 The Coloured identity which emerged in the early twentieth
century, however, was far more exclusionary and would, over time, even develop into
hostility towards other Black communities. This was fuelled by fears of further political
marginalisation by Whites as many Coloured people, particularly from the emerging elite,
chose to dissociate themselves from Africans for fear of being relegated to the same low
socio-political and economic status. This fear was often expressed through the formation of
exclusively Coloured organisations, such as the African People’s Organisation (APO), which
was established in 1902.39
The APO’s President, Dr Abdurahman, who was not averse to united Black political action,40
was opposed by the more rigidly exclusive South African Coloured Union, established in
1912.41 The Union’s leader, James Curry, was clearly motivated in his hostility to
Abdurahman by religious bigotry and anti-Muslim feelings.42 The Teachers’ League of South
Africa, which was established in 1913 as a professional association “expressly for Coloured
teachers,”43 may be seen as an example of “the Coloured elite’s reaction to …
segregation,”44 and as part of a deliberate political process of fostering “Coloured
separatism” and promoting “a status of relative privilege for Coloureds on the basis that they
were more ‘civilised’ than Africans.”45 The United Afrikaner League, which was established in
1919, was supported by the anti-Muslim newspaper, The Clarion, which attacked
Abdurahman’s leadership on the basis that, as a Muslim, he had no right to represent
“Christian, ‘true’ Coloured South Africans”.46 In 1925, the Coloured organisation, the African
National Bond was formed, with the objective of gaining the recognition of Coloureds and
‘Malays’47 as distinct races, as well as protection from “unequal and inequitable competition
on the part of the Native”.48 The African National Bond supported the Government’s policy of
racial segregation, but wanted a higher status than Africans since, they also maintained, they
were more ‘civilised’ than Africans.49 The virulent strain of Coloured separatism espoused by
the United Afrikaner League and the African National Bond, which regarded Africans as
outsiders in the Western Cape, and Indian South Africans and Cape Muslims as exotic
aliens and thus un-South African, was far more aggressive than the Coloured separatism of
the Teachers League and the ‘Coloured distinctiveness’, but broad ‘Non-European’ unity,
subscribed to by the APO.
During the late 1930s the rise of radical organisations in Cape Town with a non-racial
agenda, such as the National Liberation League (established in 1935)50 and the Non-
European United Front (established in 1938),51 did little to stem the separatist strategies of
Coloured political organisations as they ultimately did not succeed in establishing a united
Black struggle for full democratic rights.52 Thus the combined impact of the separatist
organisations promoting Coloured separatism was to entrench the ethnic tensions and
4
cultural divisions bequeathed by the late colonial era. It was thus inevitable that these
tensions and divisions would spill over into the sporting sector.
SPORT AND SECTARIANISM IN CAPE TOWN IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
The racial divisions which existed in Cape Town society in the late nineteenth century, found
expression in the sporting world in the formation of exclusively White sporting associations
for cricket, cycling, athletics and swimming.53 Black communities eager to participate in the
new forms of sport, thus had little option but to form their own clubs, such as the first African
cricket club in Port Elizabeth in 1869,54 followed by numerous others for tennis, croquet and
rugby.55 In Cape Town a number of parallel Coloured sports organisations, such as the
Western Province Coloured Athletics Association and Cycling Union, and the Western
Province Coloured Rugby Football Federation was established during the 1890s.56
Furthermore, given that the racial and class stratification of colonial society was the norm, it
is not surprising to find that the tendency among Black communities was to establish
separate sports clubs on ethnic, cultural or religious grounds.57 However, it should be noted
that, during the late colonial era, separation on the basis of ethnicity within the Black
community itself was generally not hostile or rigid, and that teams formed by a particular
group could and did include members of other groups.58 Also, mixed competitions among
the Black community were routinely held during this period,59 while sporting associations
representing all Black clubs were not unusual.60 However, a hostile note was beginning to
creep into the move towards ethnic separatism, as could be seen when City and Suburban
Rugby Union, a Coloured, Christian Club founded in Cape Town in 1898, prohibited Muslims
from membershipan expression of religious bigotry which would remain in place until the
early 1960s.61
During the first three decades of the twentieth century, ethnically separate sports clubs were
increasingly being established in Cape Town.62 Indeed, the increasingly segregationist
policies of the State reinforced and encouraged the fault lines of “cultural and religious
particularism”63 in sport throughout South Africa. In Cape Town, the increasing residential
segregation of Africans and their forced removal from ‘mixed’ residential areas had the effect
of normalising the exclusion of those now perceived as outsiders from the use of facilities
traditionally used by Coloured communities. Hence, clubs not only barred Muslims from
joining their clubs but also barred them from using their sports facilities, as was the case
when Muslim cricket and rugby clubs in Claremont were prohibited from using the Rosmead
Sportsground.64 The football sector was particularly exclusionary, with certain clubs using
discriminatory clauses to keep out Africans and Muslims65 until these clauses were finally
abandoned in the late 1950s and 1960s.66
It was in this highly racially, ethnically and culturally stratified society, that the Cape Province
Mountain Club came into being.
THE CAPE PROVINCE MOUNTAIN CLUB – ORIGINS
The regular recreational use of the Table Mountain Chain by Black communities may be
traced back to the early twentieth century, when the youth in areas with easy access to the
mountain, began rambling and hiking on the mountain this included central Cape Town,
and predominantly Coloured areas such as the Bo-Kaap, as well as District Six and
Coloured enclaves in suburbs all the way around the mountain chain to Simon’s Town.
These leisure-seekers were predominantly Coloured, not only because of residential
5
proximity, but also because of the smaller numbers of Africans in Cape Town, particularly in
areas located close to the Table Mountain Chain.67 Another factor contributing to the
phenomenon of mainly Coloured leisure-seekers, was the racial hierarchy which placed
Africans at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, while Coloureds were relatively better
off, with access to non-menial jobs off limits to Africans.68 One of the few examples of African
leisure-seekers on the mountain (as opposed to workers walking to and from the summit of
Table Mountain for work purposes, such as reservoir construction), was that undertaken by
African students at Zonnebloem College in Walmer Estate69 a leisure pursuit they had
enjoyed since the late nineteenth century.70 Other than this, it was mainly young people from
Coloured communities, such as Bernard Combrinck, who lived in central Cape Town, and
who grew up to become a teacher,71 who became enthusiastic mountaineers in the early
years of the twentieth century. Dirk Ziervogel, who was a teenager during the early years of
the twentieth century, was taken on mountaineering trips by the Cowley Brothers, who had a
small monastery in District Six.72 With his interest thus stimulated, Ziervogel became a keen
mountaineer, who would later join the Cape Province Mountain Club in the 1930s.73
Other recreational walkers who lived in close proximity to the Table Mountain Chain, were
the young daughters of the prominent Gool family,74 who lived in Buitensingel Street and off
Buitenkant Street, Cape Town. Minnie Gool and her sisters became enthusiastic mountain
ramblers through the invitation of Carl Fisher (who subsequently became a founder member
of the Cape Province Mountain Club) and his friend, Mr Carelse.75 Residents of the Bo-Kaap
also used Signal Hill, Lions Head and Table Mountain for leisure, going for walks at
weekends, as the paternal grandparents of Terence Fredericks did during the early years of
the twentieth century.76 It was during the 1930s, that camping in the caves of Table Mountain
began to take root as a popular leisure activity among the Coloured community. George
Rudolph,77 a Scout Master who worked for the Forestry Department of the City Council, used
to take District Six Scouts on overnight camping trips to Postern Cave on Table Mountain. All
these mountain-based activities demonstrated how the youth of the communities in close
proximity to the mountain chain, who were confined to narrow streets with few outdoor
recreation facilities, used the mountain as a leisure space and playing field.78 Given this
recreational context, it is unsurprising that, by the beginning of the 1930s, the numbers of
Coloured mountain walkers and climbers had grown to such an extent as to cause comment
by the MCSA.79
Given that the racial stratification of society in Cape Town had become so entrenched by this
stage, there was no question of admitting any of these Coloured mountaineering enthusiasts
to the MCSA, nor did they seek to do so. Instead, given the political context of the period, a
group of keen mountaineers set about establishing a separate organisation by seeking
advice from the MCSA. The Treasurer of the MCSA reported that, early in 1931, he was
“approached by a Coloured person with a request for information with a view to forming a
Coloured mountain club.”80 The MCSA, adopting a rather formal stance, did not respond to
this approach, on the grounds that no written communication had been received. The
founders of the Cape Province Mountain Club (CPMC) duly went ahead and established the
organisation in about mid-193181 at the home of ‘Binder’ Petersen in District Six,82 and then
began holding their meetings at St Marks School in the area.83 In the MCSA’s Annual Report
of 1931, it was noted that,84
6
“During the year a non-European club has been started under the name of the ‘Cape
Province Mountain Club.’ The new club has the sympathetic support of the Mountain
Club of South Africa.”
Shortly after the CPMC’s establishment, a deputation from the Club attended a meeting of
the MCSA, where its aims and objectives were put forward and “the sympathetic help” of the
MCSA was requested.85
The CPMC itself maintains that it was established on 16 December 1931,86 although this
date cannot be verified as documents relating to the Club’s early history have been lost.87
The founder members were Carl Fisher (Climbing Leader), C Petersen (Chairman), Mrs K
Petersen (Treasurer), Cecil Townshend (Secretary), Henry Flowers, J Kannemeyer and Bill
Steyn.88 Although little is known of the socio-economic standing of the Club’s membership, in
contrast to that of the MCSA, members were probably drawn from the lower middle class
and the working class, although the Club itself describes its early membership as being
“drawn from the working classes.”89 Petersen, for example, was a bookbinder by trade90
(giving rise to his nickname of ‘Binder’), while others, such as Fisher91 and Townshend
worked for the City Council, probably as Mountain Rangers,92 given that Townshend reported
for duty at the City Council premises on the summit of Table Mountain.93 In his later years,
Townshend was forced by socio-economic circumstances to live in the Tafelberg Hostel94
and eventually lived as “a hermit” on the mountain.95
THE CAPE PROVINCE MOUNTAIN CLUB, 1930s – 1940s
Since “not much evidence of the previous history of the Club is available,”96 little information
exists about the early members or activities of the Club. However, in addition to the scant
information available about the members of the first Executive, other members during the
1930s included Dirk Ziervogel,97 Ronald February,98 a primary school teacher, Jaap February
(who was related to Ronald) and Tommy George. In addition, it is “known that most of the
male members of the young club saw service with the Allied Forces in North Africa between
1939 and 1945” and that ,“There was very little activity until about 1948.”99 Helen February,100
then a machinist in a factory, joined the Club in about 1947 when her husband-to-be, Ronald
February, was the Chairperson.101 Unusually for a CPMC member during that period, Helen
lived on the Cape Flats, and had a keen interest in the outdoors and loved nature.102 So
when a friend who lived in Loader St (now part of the de Waterkant area) invited her to a
CPMC meet, she was eager to go - thus beginning a life-long love of mountains and
mountain walking.103 Ronald’s sisters, Frieda, Lily, Joan and Georgina (who lived in the Bo-
Kaap), who were also CPMC members, had kept the Club going during the war years.104 The
February sisters were either primary school teachers or seamstresses.105
The Club was able to acquire a lease for a hut on Table Mountain soon after its formation, 106
apparently through the assistance of Dr Abdurahman,107 the APO leader who was also a
Councillor on the City Council. The hut, which had been built during the construction of the
Woodhead Dam on the Back Table of Table Mountain at the end of the nineteenth century,
was originally divided into two sections and the Club shared it with the labourers of the City
Council Waterworks Department until the late 1960s, when new quarters were built for the
workers.108 The wood and iron hut was situated on the open plateau at the top of Kasteel’s
Poort where it was exposed to harsh weather conditions.
7
After the inactivity of the war years, the late 1940s was “a period of heightened activity.”109
One of the most active and talented CPMC members during the late 1940s was Charlie
Hankey, who was a “legendary rock climber,” who opened some of the most difficult climbs
on Table Mountain, such as ‘the Escalator’.110 Leonard Thomas was part of a group of “crack
rock climbers”, including Neville Galliet and Ishmet Allie, who were mentored by Hankey.111
Other members, such as Bernard and Elizabeth Brock, were also involved in rock climbing.
Richard (Dick) Knipe, a worker in a garment factory who was a keen mountaineer, had
belonged to the Scouts as a youngster and joined the Club in about 1948, aged eighteen.112
By the late 1940s, the older Club members such as Bobby Townshend, Dirk Ziervogel and
his friend, Jaap February, had reached veteran status, but still walked on the mountain. Carl
Fisher was foremost among them and he was nicknamed “the old man he walked very
fast, no-one could keep up with him.”113
During these decades, the CPMC and the MCSA co-operated in ‘search and rescue’
activities on Table Mountain, but only at an informal level. One such informal joint rescue in
December 1938 involved Tommy George (a CPMC member who played a leading role in the
search), fellow CPMC member Carl Fisher and members of the MCSA, among others.114 The
co-operation between members of the CPMC and MCSA in informal joint ‘search and
rescue’ parties was acknowledged at an MCSA AGM in 1946.115
That the Club was located in District Six was unsurprising as the area’s proximity to Table
Mountain, as well as the activities of the Scouts and the Silvertree Boys Club played a major
role in stimulating an interest in mountaineering among the youth in the area.116 For example,
Ian Combrinck117 recalled that as a young lad in the mid-to-late 1930s, he was a member of
the Scouts and later, probably during the 1940s, participated in the activities of the Silvertree
Boys Club.118 It was through the Scouts that he went up the mountain for the first time,
followed by regular climbs, as well as scouting activities in the Glen (a nature area in the
mountain above Camps Bay), which his troop, the First Cape Town Scouts, had to look
after.119 It was through the Silvertree Boys’ Club that Combrinck also pursued his love for the
mountains and mountaineering, as the Boys’ Club took their members on regular mountain
hikes.120
It was George Rudolf, a Scout master and self-taught face-climber, who had initiated Ian
Combrinck into the sport of rock climbing, probably during the 1940s.121 Former District Six
resident, Vincent Kolbe, remembered playing in the quarry on Devils Peak, and as a
member of the Scouts in about the mid-to-late 1940s, recalled trips to the Glen and to the
summit of Table Mountain via Kasteels Poort.122 Another former District Six resident was the
renowned novelist, the late Richard Rive, who was a member of the King’s Scouts, and who
recalled similar memories of activities in the Glen during the same period.123 Although never
a member of the CPMC, Rive grew up to become a keen and capable mountaineer,124
despite moving far away from District Six in his adult years.
The Impact of Segregation and Sectarianism during the 1930s-1940s
The newly-formed Cape Province Mountain Club had to operate in an increasingly restrictive
political space. Racial discrimination not only continued during this period but, as in the past,
was implemented on an ethnically differentiated basis. Thus Africans were subjected to
further restrictions on their already limited franchise rights125 and freedom of movement.126
Indian South Africans, long subjected to restrictions on access to land, the franchise and
8
freedom of movement,127 were further targeted in this regard.128 Coloured people were
targeted through the establishment of a Coloured Affairs Department in 1943,129 a move
perceived by those opposed to Coloured chauvinism as a step on the road to the further
political marginalisation of this group.130
With regard to segregation in the social sphere prior to the imposition of apartheid, racial
distinctions were becoming more marked through the segregation or exclusion of Blacks
from public leisure facilities, such as cafes, hotels, restaurants, swimming pools and
beaches.131 In the voluntary or private interest sector catering to the White elite, an
acceptance of the political status quo and consequent acceptance of racially discriminatory
practices was common.132 This sometimes took the form of a constitutional bar to Black
membership as in the case of the Veld Trust133 (a soil conservation body established in
1943). However, the constitutions of many others, such as the Mountain Club of South
Africa, the Botanical Society134 and the Wildlife Society135 made no mention of race,136
doubtless secure in the knowledge that few Black persons would be so bold as to ignore the
unwritten social conventions of the day.
The way in which the MCSA interacted and dealt with the CPMC, was very much rooted
in its own response to the socio-political context of the 1930s 1940s. From the very
beginning, the MCSA seemed to have difficulty in dealing with the CPMC on a collegial
basis, despite the fact that the latter’s headquarters in District Six was mere streets away,
and their huts on the mountain only metres from each other. The tone was set from the
start, when the MCSA noted that, 137
“The recently-formed non-European Club should be given sympathetic help, as it
could not be otherwise than a step in the right direction to organise into a responsible
club the increasing numbers of non-Europeans frequenting Table Mountain.”
Thus the MCSA perceived the CPMC not so much as a fellow mountaineering organisation,
but as a useful mechanism for handling the “increasing numbers of non-Europeans” using
Table Mountain for recreational purposes. The MCSA seemed set on a rather distant and
impersonal relationship with the CPMC, as could be seen in its reaction to the CPMC’s
invitation to the opening of its hut on Table Mountain. The MCSA, which had been
discomfited to learn that the CPMC had been granted the use of a hut, 138 had agreed to
discuss the invitation at its Annual General Meeting,139 but did not seem to have done so, as
the AGM minutes simply noted the Club’s formation.140
The relationship between the well-resourced MCSA, with its affluent membership, and the
CPMC which, while cordial on the surface, was a reflection of the unequal power relations
which existed between Black and White in a society in which racial discrimination and
segregation was becoming the norm. Moreover, decades of dealing with Blacks solely in the
subordinate role of carriers and campsite cooks and cleaners since its formation in 1891,
and of referring to them as “boys,” “coolies,” “Hottentots,” “Kaffirs” and “niggers” in the pages
of its Journal,141 left the MCSA incapable of dealing with CPMC members as fellow
mountaineers, let alone as equals. Although the use of expressions of outright racism had
mostly ceased by the 1930s and paternalistic terminology such as “boys”142 occurred less
frequently, this did not mean that, by that stage, the MCSA was comfortable in dealing with
the CPMC on the basis of equality.
9
Matters had not improved much by the 1940s, despite the fact that the two organisations
often participated in informal ‘search and rescue’ parties on Table Mountain. An MCSA
member’s suggestion that the minimal level of co-operation which existed in these joint
activities should be formalised, was quickly quashed by the MCSA leadership.143 The
member, Mr Burton, was especially keen that, “a gesture should be made to the Club in
recognition of the services rendered by its members from time to time”, and that the MCSA
should play a closer mentoring role, particularly to the youth in the ranks of the CPMC.144
However, while the leadership claimed that the CPMC’s co-operation was “fully recognised
and much appreciated”, it was made clear that the ad hoc situation which then existed with
regard to joint search and rescue missions, would continue unchanged.145 The practical
consequence of the MCSA’s refusal to engage in a collegial relationship with the CPMC, was
that the talented climbers in the CPMC were deprived of the opportunity to gain further rock
climbing expertise, while the juniors were deprived of the opportunity to be mentored by the
more experienced climbers in the MCSA.
With regard to sectarianism in the ranks of the CPMC, the Club has consistently claimed
that, “we have explicitly excluded any restrictions on race colour or creed”146 and that there
has always been “a diversity of members”.147 However, no written records exist today (such
as the original Constitution and minutes of meetings) which could substantiate the Club’s
claim to non-racial objectives.148 Casting doubt on the Club’s claims to non-racialism, is the
fact that there have also been ambiguous admissions and oblique references to the racial
origins of the club.149 Further, the political situation regarding the extent of Coloured
nationalism in the Western Cape and the widespread acceptance of sectarianism in sport at
the time of the Club’s formation, makes the CPMC’s claim to non-racialism unlikely. It should
also be borne in mind that, as noted earlier, non-racialism as a political ideology did not have
popular support in the Western Cape - as also acknowledged by a current CPMC member
when commenting on the pre-1960 period.150
Given the political context of the 1930s and the sectarianism prevailing in the sporting sector
in Cape Town, a more likely scenario is that the CPMC was established as a mountaineering
organisation for Coloured people, whether this was reflected in its Constitution or not, and
that it probably likely remained so during the first two decades of its existence. Thus it is
likely that neither Africans nor Muslims151 were welcome in the Club prior to the 1950s. As a
former member has commented,152
“In my parent’s time [about the 1940s] it was probably a Coloured club – it’s difficult but
I think we need to admit it that’s the way things were at that time of course it
changed in later years”.
THE CAPE PROVINCE MOUNTAIN CLUB IN THE 1950s – 1960s
By now the older generation had drifted away and a new generation of climbers joined the
Club. These members included Neville Hendricks and Sydney Alexander, who is currently
the CPMC’s oldest member. Alexander joined the Club while at high school in the mid-
1950s, after his love for mountaineering was sparked by his Woodwork teacher who had
taken a group of students on a mountain walk.153 Some of the prominent individuals in the
Club during the 1950s included Ishmet Allie, who was part of the opening party on Avalanche
Crag in 1954 and Charlie Hankey, who was on the first climb of Fountain Edge in 1957. 154 In
fact, Hankey was considered to be one of the top climbers of the 1950s, together with MCSA
10
member, Barry Fletcher.155 The two formed an informal partnership and opened routes on
Table Mountain156 - a partnership which was probably not publicised, given the MCSA’s
hostile stance on its members climbing with “Non-Europeans” (see next section).
Mountaineering was very much a family activity, with the interest of the younger generation
usually sparked by older family members, as shown by the experience of Brian Brock, who,
as a child in the 1950s went on mountain walks with his grandfather, Dirk Ziervogel 157 and
regularly accompanied his parents, Club members Bernard and Elizabeth (Bobby) Brock to
overnight at the Club’s hut.158 Brock later joined the Club, aged eighteen, in 1967.159 This was
also the experience of current CPMC member, Darrell Abrahams, whose parents and
grandparents (who lived in District Six and Walmer Estate), were keen mountaineers,
possibly during the 1940s and 1960s.160 The young members of the Gangat family were
strongly influenced by older brother and CPMC member, George, who not only initiated his
siblings into mountaineering in the mid-to-late 1960s but sparked the enthusiasm of two of
his sisters (Linda and Sheila) to the point where they, too, joined the Club.161 In similar vein,
Rodney and Helen February, as well as Dick Knipe and his wife Shirley Sandberg Knipe,
were all dedicated Club members, practically bringing up their children162,163 on the mountain
during the 1960s. Of the Knipe family, Colleen remembers that,164
“… our journeys were mainly [to] mountains. People thought us quite an eccentric
family because our whole life seemed to revolve around mountains. Every spare minute
we had was up to the mountains. We spent our weekends there, all long holidays, New
Year, everything was spent on the mountain”.
The first expedition abroad, was that undertaken by three members, Neville Galliet, A
George and J Thomas to Kilimanjaro in 1951.165 They drove to Tanzania in a Morris Minor,
which broke down en route. The Club was also heavily involved in search and rescue efforts
during the 1950s, using a stretcher donated to the Club.166 Training in search and rescue
expertise was imparted by the MCSA, with senior member W Crump playing a major role in
training CPMC members. The home of Henry Mead and Mrs Mead in Walmer Estate was
used by the Club as its headquarters for co-ordinating its search and rescue activities.167
Outreach activities were launched during the 1950s, when mountaineering programmes and
outdoor experiences for school, church and youth groups were organised, as the Club felt it
was important to expose underprivileged communities to these experiences.168 This was a
tradition that continued during the 1960s. The Club also “forged strong links with foreign
mountain clubs” such as the European Alpine Club, during the 1950s, and hosted members
of the Japanese Alpine Club when they passed through Cape Town with the Japanese
Antarctic Expedition of 1957.169 During the 1960s, prominent Club members included
Michael Koonin and George Gangat who opened Spring Central in 1962; and Koonin and A.
Hinrickson climbed a new route (Sassenach) on the lower Wellington Sneeukop in 1964.170
Patrick Pasqualle, a former District Six resident who would become a Club official in the
1970s, joined the Club as a teenager in 1962.171 Pasqualle recalls that a regular club
newsletter, Mountain Lookout, was published during the 1960s172 it was quite an informal
publication, without an editor, which lapsed during that period.173
Like many District Six youngsters, George Gangat had had his passion for mountaineering
ignited by David McAdam, a warden at St Marks Community Centre, who was also involved
in the Silvertree Boys’ Club, and who regularly took youths up Table Mountain.174 McAdam’s
11
mountain excursions was one way that a number of boys were brought into the field of
mountaineering and subsequently into the CPMC.175 Indeed, it was the mountaineering
activities of organisations such as the Scouts176 and the Silvertree Boys’ Club (whose
warden, McAdam was a member of the Mountain Club of South Africa),177 which taught
many young boys the skills of mountaineering, and thus were especially important in
sparking a love of mountains and mountaineering among the youth of District Six.178
As in previous decades, the neighbouring mountains were regularly used as recreation
grounds by the children and adolescents of District Six, with groups of young boys exploring
the lower slopes of the mountain in the 1950s179 and, as they grew older, venturing higher up
the mountain and eventually camping in the caves of Table Mountain over weekends and
especially at Easter.180 Given the widespread involvement of District Six youth in
mountaineering activities, it is not surprising that many of the Club’s members were drawn
from District Six. However, it is also surprising that the CPMC was not better known
throughout the District and that their membership remained fairly small during this period.
One reason for this was that the Club was quite family-oriented, with many of its members
entering the Club through family contacts and their friends; another was that the Club was
wary of admitting members who did not have the requisite commitment and merely wished to
join in order to gain access to its mountain hut.181 However, there were also class and
financial factors at play, as the Club was,182
“very conservative and selective in who they accepted, they were rather elitist. You
needed proper boots, a certain amount of equipment it wasn’t cheap you needed
food, a haversack, bus fare, raingear etc. For me, the Club was a necessity, not a
luxury but for others, it was too expensive.”
The Impact of Apartheid and Sectarianism
The political situation was set to worsen in the 1950s, making the operations of Black civil
society organisations (CSOs) such as the CPMC even more difficult. In 1948, the Nationalist
Party campaigned and won the national election on an ‘apartheid’ ticket, i.e. complete
segregation among the ‘races’ in every sphere of public life. Winning the elections enabled
the Nationalists to complete the process of formal and informal segregation which had been
under way during the colonial and post-Union decades, and institutionalise it throughout the
country.183 Under apartheid, a body of laws was passed which, by consolidating and
extending existing racially discriminatory legislation further subordinated and sought to
permanently exclude Blacks from the mechanisms of economic and political power.184 These
laws were founded on the Population Registration Act No.30 of 1950185 which gave the force
of law to the informal, often permeable racial groupings which historically had always been
recognised in South Africa. The Group Areas Act no. 41 of 1950186 provided for the
establishment of separate residential areas to which members of the various population
groups were restricted. The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act No. 49 of 1953 provided
for public premises to be reserved for the members of a particular race, regardless of
whether the facilities were substantially equal or not187 and in fact, they were overwhelmingly
skewed in favour of Whites.188
With regard to the operation of CSOs, the implementation of apartheid legislation (such as
the Group Areas and Separate Amenities Acts), as well as Government threats to withhold
subsidies made it extremely difficult for non-racial (or multi-racial, as it was known then)
12
events to take place.189 However, for many mainstream CSOs, such threats were
unnecessary as their membership was largely politically conservative and willingly toed the
line, as the MCSA did in 1957 when the Japanese Antarctic Expedition stopped over in Cape
Town. Since the Japanese were regarded by the Government as a ‘Non-White’ nation, this
was in all likelihood the reason that the MCSA made no attempt to meet with the Japanese
Alpine Club accompanying the expedition, as any such meeting would certainly have been
noted in the Journal or the minutes for that year.190 However, the MCSA had no problem in
communicating and meeting with members of European climbing clubs during the same
period.191 At that time, many mainstream CSOs were quite happy to accept the political
status quo, whether required to by law or not,192 and many of them invited politicians and
Government officials to serve as their patrons.193 The MCSA for example, had C.R. Swart,
the State President of South Africa, as its Honorary President in the mid-1960s194 and
regularly invited Cabinet Ministers (such as Minister of Mines and Planning, J.F.W. Haak,
who was also an MCSA member),195 to its Annual Dinners.
The MCSA also had strategies for dealing with membership applications from anyone
deemed ‘undesirable’, such as Jews196 and Blacks. In this regard, the Club felt it was
unnecessary to spell out its position on the ethnic or racial criteria for membership in its
Constitution: its preferred approach was simply to ‘blackball’ (i.e. decline) any applications
for membership from anyone they didn’t want.197 While the issue of Black membership was
seldom a ‘problem’ with which the MCSA had been confronted in earlier decades owing to
the small number of Blacks with the level of leisure and affluence required to participate in
mountaineering, it had certainly became a reality by the mid-twentieth century as the
numbers of Black (predominantly Coloured), leisure-seekers on Table Mountain grew.
The growing numbers of Coloured students in high school during the 1950s and ‘60s198
contributed to the higher numbers of Black leisure-seekers as a result of students being
taken on mountain hikes by their teachers. One such example was Ian Combrinck, a teacher
at Livingstone High School in the mid-to-late 1950s who took his students on mountain
hikes, thus establishing a culture of mountain hiking at the school;199 while at Trafalgar High
School, in the late 1950s, it was Science master and CPMC member Lionel van der Horst,
who led groups of students on regular mountain hikes.200 It was also at high school where
students were exposed to other students who were enthusiastic mountaineers - for example,
Andy Johnston, a former resident of Walmer Estate (adjacent to District Six), remembers
going up Platteklip Gorge in the early 1950s with his classmates from Trafalgar High School,
while in the 1960s, Stephen Joyi was introduced to mountaineering by some of his high
school classmates, who lived in Protea Village (below Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden).201 In
addition, as noted earlier, there was a well-established tradition of camping on Table
Mountain over weekends and public holidays, by groups of youngsters. While all the
communities living in close proximity to the Table Mountain Chain (such as Simon’s Town,
Kalk Bay, Bo-Kaap) nurtured new generations of mountain lovers, it was District Six in
particular,202 as well as Protea Village203 which grew the pool of Black mountaineering
enthusiasts during this period. This is well illustrated by the mountaineering career of Andy
Johnston and his friend Alfie Turner, were initiated into rope climbing in the late 1950s by
CPMC members Willie Moon, Mr Hennecke and someone named ‘Billet’.204 Despite the fact
that neither Johnston nor Turner was a CPMC member, these “exceptionally good climbers”
nonetheless took the adventurous youngsters on dizzying rope climbs on Table Mountain,
Bain’s Kloof and du Toit’s Kloof.205
13
As a result of the increased leisure use of the mountain in the form of hiking and
mountaineering, the MCSA was increasingly confronted with what it perceived as the
‘problem’ of “Non-Europeans” inviting its members on climbs;206 with its own members going
on climbs with “Non-Europeans,”207 and its members inviting “Non-Europeans,” to sleep over
at its Table Mountain hut.208 On at least one occasion in the late 1950s, Silvertree warden
and MCSA member McAdam, took a group of District Six Sea Scouts to the Club’s hut. 209
This type of contact however, when discovered by the Club, was frowned upon, with senior
member Crump stating that, “the prestige of the Club would be affected if Club members
climbed with Non-Europeans,” and insisting that those members who did so, “should choose
between [their] Coloured friends and loyalty to the Club.”210 The matter was taken so
seriously that, when one of its members, Mr A Fowler, who regularly climbed with “Non-
Europeans,” raised the issue of Black membership at a meeting, he was told in no uncertain
terms, that if he continued to climb with Blacks, his course was clear: “it would be proper for
him to resign.”211 This hostile, racist attitude towards Black mountaineers undoubtedly fed
into the MCSA’s relationship with the CPMC, making it impossible for the former to forge a
collegial, equal relationship with the latter, thus explaining the aloof, distant approach
adopted by the MCSA towards the CPMC.
Hence, by the early years of the apartheid era, it was quite clear that the MCSA had no
interest in having any contact with Black mountaineers, other than through the distant and
extremely limited contact it had with the CPMC. Thus, except for the occasional
communication with the CPMC (such as the message of congratulations it sent on the
occasion of the CPMC’s Silver Jubilee in 1956),212 contact was confined to the ways in which
the CPMC could be used to manage the impact that increasing numbers of Black mountain
users had on the environment.213 And although there was one occasion when the CPMC was
invited to the MCSA’s club room in town to attend a lecture and demonstration on rock
climbing techniques, this was an exception, with arrangements carried out with “discretion …
so as to avoid any embarrassment”214 (presumably to CPMC members entering a venue
from which they were ordinarily excluded). For the most part, it seemed that the CPMC
accepted the nature of its relationship with the MCSA and was resigned to the fact that
apartheid ideology dictated this state of affairs. As CPMC member Helen February noted of
this period,215
“At that time, we just accepted things as they were – separate clubs – it was the same
way in which we accepted all the racial segregation, the boards etc so we made no
overtures [to the MCSA].”
The implementation of apartheid also affected the CPMC in that it consolidated the existing
racial prejudice and discrimination they had been facing during the segregation era, which
negatively impacted on the Club’s operations and further development. This was particularly
evident in the mountainous areas of the Western Cape and elsewhere, where the Club was
apparently “very active”216 since the Club did not have the kind of equal, cordial relationships
which the MCSA had been able to forge with White farmers whose land necessarily had to
be entered in order to access the mountains in country areas.217 CPMC members would
undoubtedly have faced hostility from White farmers and in many instances would have had
their activities curtailed.218 Having to operate in a more restrictive, hostile political
environment also made it difficult for the Club to establish a club house in town. In 1955 the
Carl Fisher Memorial Fund was started and by 1961 plans for a club house had been drawn
up and the Club was negotiating for a lease with the Cape Town City Council. However,
14
these plans did not come to fruition, due in no small part to the imposition of the Group Areas
Act.219
By the 1960s, District Six was under the threat of being declared a White Group Area, a
threat which became a reality in the wake of the declaration of District Six as an exclusively
White residential area on 11 February 1966,220 leaving the Club “without a fixed venue for
meetings and social functions which could act as a focal point for members.”221 The
destruction of District Six and the dispersal of its residents to various areas of the Cape Flats
represented a serious loss for the Club. Not only did the Club lose venues such as St Phillips
Church in Chapel Street, which had been used as a venue for social evenings and to show
films on rock climbing techniques,222 but it lost the nursery where many members of the new
generation of mountaineers had been nurtured at institutions like the Scouts and the
Silvertree Boys’ Club. Most importantly, it lost the advantage of proximity to Table Mountain,
which had been enjoyed by the District Six community.
The sectarianism rampant in the Black sporting sector in the decades prior to the start of the
apartheid era, continued to prevail in the 1940s and ‘50s and in some instances, right up till
the 1960s.223 This was reflected for example, by an anti-Muslim sentiment so entrenched in
several sporting sectors, that many Muslim sportsmen and women felt obliged to either
pretend to be Christian or to form separate clubs of their own.224 However, notwithstanding
the acceptance of sectarianism in Black communities and the growing trend towards
institutionalised racial and ethnic segregation in society as a whole, there were always
individual attempts to break these boundaries during both the pre-apartheid and apartheid
eras.225 Thus it was that, during the late 1940s onwards, the first tentative moves away from
sectarianism began to be taken and “inter-racial umbrella organisations” in cricket and
soccer were established.226 The move towards non-racial sport began to gain momentum
during the 1950s, with sectarian constitutional clauses in Western Cape sport finally being
removed in the early 1960s.227 However, it would not be before the 1970s, with the
establishment of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS),228 with its support for a non-
racial ideology, as well as the rise of a greater political militancy in society in the wake of the
Soweto uprising from the late 1970s onwards,229 that sectarianism in sport could definitively
be dealt with.
The CPMC was not immune to the segregationist policies of the State reinforcing,
encouraging and even normalising the fault lines of “cultural and religious particularism”230 in
sport throughout South Africa - thus it is likely that up until the 1950s, the CPMC was a
homogenous organisation in its racial (i.e. Coloured) and religious make-up (i.e. Christian).
Again, like the rest of the sporting sector, the CPMC responded positively to the political
changes in society and the first Muslim member was probably Ishmet Allie, who joined in the
1950s, as Neville Galliet (who had joined earlier), was apparently either not very religious or
may have converted to Christianity.231 However, ethnic and cultural diversity would prove to
be impossible to achieve during the apartheid era.
CONCLUSION
When leisure mountaineering became established at the Cape in the late colonial era, it was
the preserve of the White elite. While many Blacks were familiar with Table Mountain, even
to the extent of being expert mountaineers, their skills had been acquired as a result of their
work on the mountain as porters, labourers, laundresses and flower-pickers. Blacks were
15
excluded from acquiring the requisite rock climbing skills for the new sport of rock climbing,
due to a combination of economic discrimination (which prevented them from being able to
afford the equipment required), as well as the prevailing de facto racial segregation and
unwritten social conventions (which excluded them from membership of the Mountain Club
of South Africa).
In the twentieth century, and in spite of the growing institutionalisation of racial discrimination
in society, Black leisure use of the Table Mountain Chain took root, particularly among
Coloured communities living in close proximity to the mountains. The use of the mountains
for recreation was especially widespread among groups of older children, adolescents and
young adults, with rambling, picnicking and camping being popular activities until the forced
removal of most of these communities to distant townships from the late 1960s onwards,
severely curtailed their participation in these activities.
This paper has focused on the development of mountaineering as a formal sport among the
Coloured community through an analysis of the history of the Cape Province Mountain Club.
As a poorly-resourced NGO based in District Six, the club had to deal with the negative
consequences of the reluctance of its affluent counterpart, the Mountain Club of South
Africa, to freely share its expertise, officially co-operate on mountain rescues and collaborate
with it on the basis of equality. This paper has also shown that the CPMC was further
handicapped by the political context of the pre-apartheid and early apartheid eras, a period
when aggressive Coloured nationalism and religious bigotry in sport contributed to a lack of
ethnic and cultural diversity in its membership; and when racial and economic discrimination
prevented its members from freely accessing mountains in the rural areas of the Cape,
elsewhere in South Africa and abroad. As a consequence of these socio-economic and
political factors, the sport of mountaineering in general was negatively affected, while the
development of the sport among Black communities in particular, was stunted.
However, notwithstanding the significant obstacles confronting the CPMC during the period
1931 1960s, the Club sought to overcome these stumbling blocks through acquiring
expertise through its own efforts, collaborating with the members of visiting mountain clubs,
creating their own climbing opportunities and encouraging environmental awareness. Thus,
while it is true that, as a result of the prevailing socio-political situation during this period,
Black mountaineers were badly disadvantaged, and that consequently the development of
the sport of mountaineering at the Cape was stunted, the Cape Province Mountain Club
nonetheless strove to serve its membership to the best of its ability, harnessing and nurturing
the love of mountains, mountain walking and mountain climbing already present in the
communities they served.
_________________________________________________________________________
16
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Africa 34 (1932): 130.
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Collections, University of Cape Town, B1.8 Minute Book VIII, 09 June 194114 December
1949, p.133. BC 1421 MCSA.
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1954. B1.9, Vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town,
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1954. B1.9, Vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town,
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1955. B1.9, vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town,
BC 1421 MCSA.
20
Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 09 February
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1955. B1.9, vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town,
BC 1421 MCSA.
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South Africa, 60 (1958): 68-77.
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1957. B1.10, vol X, 25/03/1955-18/12/1961, Special Collections, University of Cape Town,
BC 1421 MCSA.
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Collections, University of Cape Town, B1.10 Minute Book X, 25 March 1955 – 18 December
1961. BC 1421 MCSA.
Mountain Club of South Africa. “Annual Reports, 1957.” Journal of the Mountain Club of
South Africa, 60 (1958): 68-77.
Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 08 June
1960. B1.10, vol X, 25/03/1955-18/12/1961, Special Collections, University of Cape Town,
BC 1421 MCSA.
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page.
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South Africa, 69 (1966): 9.
Murray, Joyce, ed. In Mid-Victorian Cape Town – Letters from Miss Rutherfoord. Cape Town:
A.A. Balkema, 1953.
National Veld Trust, “Membership Form,” VeldTrust News 1 (1944), 4.
Nauright, John. Sport, Culture and Identities in South Africa. Cape Town: David Philip, 1997.
Odendaal, Andre. “South Africa’s Black Victorians: Sport and Society. In South Africa in the
Nineteenth Century.” In Pleasure, Profit and Proselytism – British Culture and Sport at Home
and Abroad, 1800 - 1914, edited by J.A. Mangan, 193-214, London: Frank Cass, 1988.
Odendaal, Andre. The Story of an African Game: Black cricketers and the unmasking of one
of cricket’s greatest myths, South Africa, 1850 – 2003. Cape Town: David Philip, 2003.
Odendaal, Andre., and Krish Reddy, Christopher Merrett and Jonty Winch. Cricket and
Conquest The History of South African Cricket Retold, 1795-1910, vol.1. Cape Town:
BestRed, 2016.
Posel, Deborah. The Making of Apartheid, 1948 – 1961: Conflict and Compromise. Oxford,
England: Clarendon Press, 1991.
Raven-Hart, R. Before van Riebeeck Callers at South Africa from 1488 1652. Cape
Town: C. Struik (Pty) Ltd., 1967.
21
South African History Online. 2005. http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file
%20uploads%20/a_tribute_to_minnie_gool.pdf
South African History Online. No date. “Bartholomeu Dias.” Accessed February 20, 2017,
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/bartholomeu-dias
Saunders, Christopher. “The Creation of Ndabeni Urban Segregation and African
Resistance in Cape Town.” In Studies in the History of Cape Town, vol.1, edited by
Christopher Saunders, 165 – 193. Cape Town, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape
Town, 1984.
Saunders, Christopher. “From Ndabeni to Langa.” In Studies in the History of Cape Town,
vol.1, edited Christopher Saunders, 194 230, Cape Town, Centre for African Studies,
University of Cape Town, 1984.
Soudien, Crain. “District Six: From Protest to Protest.” In The Struggle for District Six - Past
and Present, edited by. Shamil Jeppie and Crain Soudien, 143 180. Cape Town, Buchu
Books, 1990.
Taliep, Wiesahl. “Belletjiesbos, Draper Street and the Vlak Coloured Neighborhoods of
Claremont before the Group Areas Act.” African Studies 60, 1 (2001):65 - 85.
Thom, H.B., ed. Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, 1652-1655, vol.I. Cape Town: A.A. Balkema,
1952.
Thom, H.B., ed. Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, 1659-1662, vol.III. Cape Town: A.A. Balkema,
1958.
van Sittert, Lance. “From ‘mere weeds’ and ‘bosjes’ to a Cape Floral Kingdom the re-
imagining of indigenous flora, 1890-1939.” Kronos – Journal of Cape History 28 (2002): 102-
126.
van Sittert, Lance. “The bourgeois eye aloft: Table Mountain in the Anglo urban middle class
imagination, c.1891-1952.” Kronos – Journal of Cape History 29 (2003): 161-190.
Viljoen, Shaun. Richard Rive A Partial Biography. Johannesburg: Wits University Press,
2013.
22
1 The Portuguese navigator, Batholomeu Dias, reached the Cape in January 1488, in an attempt to find a
route to the East by rounding the southern tip of Africa. Although he did not get much further than the eastern
Cape coast, his voyage opened up a period of European exploration which would result in numerous ships
stopping at the Cape - South African History Online, “Bartholomeu Dias,” accessed February 20, 2017,
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/bartholomeu-dias
2 Antonio de Saldanha was the first person to record his ascent of Table Mountain, which took place in 1503.
However, the excursion via Plattklip Gorge, was not undertaken for recreation but to ascertain his location,
as the bay was unknown to him - Joan Kruger, On Top of Table Mountain – Remarkable Visitors over Five
Hundred Years (Paternoster, Paternoster Books, 2016), 5-6.
3 As noted by Thomas Herbert, aboard a British ship in 1627 - R. Raven-Hart, Before van Riebeeck
Callers at South Africa from 1488 – 1652 (Cape Town: C. Struik (Pty) Ltd., 1967), 118.
4 Raven-Hart, Before van Riebeeck, 41.
5 The Dutch established a revictualling station at the Cape in 1652 which subsequently developed into a
permanent settlement.
6 H.B. Thom, ed., Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, 1652-1655, vol.I (Cape Town: A.A. Balkema, 1952), 25, 80.
7 This familiarity with the mountain was demonstrated when Autshumato (known as Harry by the Dutch), a
member of the band of permanent inhabitants living in the Table Valley, led a party of colonists to the summit
of Table Mountain in September 1652 – Thom, Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, 1652-1655, 64.
8 The roots and nuts gathered on the mountain were particularly important in winter, when it formed an
important part of their diet - H.B. Thom, ed., Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, 1659-1662, vol.III (Cape Town:
A.A. Balkema, 1958),196.
9 The Goringhaiqua and Gourachouqua who trekked from the direction of Saldanha Bay and Mossel Bay
each year - Richard Elphick, Kraal and Castle KhoiKhoi and the Founding of White South Africa (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977), 91-92.
10 The Dutch noted that when the first group of Khoi herders arrived in September 1652, they pastured their
cattle “on the slope beside the Table Mountain”, and made their encampments in or near large forests on
Table Mountain as well as in the Hout Bay Valley - Thom, Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, 1652-1655, 103, 122.
11 William J. Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa (Cape Town: C Struik (Pty) Ltd., 1967), 48;
Lance van Sittert, “The bourgeois eye aloft: Table Mountain in the Anglo urban middle class imagination,
c.1891-1952”, Kronos – Journal of Cape History, 29 (2003): 163; Hector J Anderson, ed., Letters from the
Cape, 1861-1862, Lady Duff Gordon (Cape Town: Maskew Miller Ltd., no date), 24, 32.
12 Farieda Khan, “The Politics of Mountaineering in the Western Cape, South Africa – Race, Class and the
Mountain Club of South Africa: The First Forty Years, 1891 – 1931,” Paper presented at the 11th Sports Africa
Conference, Sporting Subalternities and Social Justice, University of Free State, Bloemfontein, 10 - 13 April
2017.
13 van Sittert, “The bourgeois eye aloft”, 163.
14 Joyce Murray, ed., In Mid-Victorian Cape Town Letters from Miss Rutherfoord (Cape Town: A.A.
Balkema, 1953), 38-39.
15 Former residents of District Six have described how they, their parents and / or grandparents went on
regular walks on Table Mountain – District Six Museum Archives. Interview Transcripts of interviews on Table
Mountain conducted with former District Six Residents by Linda Fortune, 1999-2000.
16 Former residents of Protea Village and District Six have described how they, their parents and / or
grandparents went on regular walks in Kirstenbosch Gardens and further afield on Table Mountain – District
Six Museum. Interview Transcripts of interviews on Forced Removals conducted with former Protea Village
Residents, 2000-2002, District Six Museum Archives.
17 Mountain Club of South Africa. The Mountain Club Successful formation last night, 09 October 1891.
Special Collections, University of Cape Town, B1.1 Vol. I, 23/10/1891 – 20/11/1895, BC 1421 MCSA.
18 Jose Burman, A Peak to Climb – The Story of South African Mountaineering (Cape Town: C Struik, 1966),
16.
19 The Mountain Club, “Constitution,” The Mountain Club Annual (January 1894): 1.
20 Blacks who tried to use the same facilities as Whites, such as first class railway carriages and hotels were
usually prevented by de facto segregation. By 1890, the de facto exclusion of Blacks from hotel facilities had
been replaced by de jure exclusion - Vivian Bickford-Smith, “The Background to Apartheid in Cape Town:
The Growth of Racism and Segregation from the Mineral Revolution to the 1930s,” Paper presented at the
History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand, 6-10 February 1990, 6; Vivian Bickford-Smith, Ethnic
Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape Town (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1995),
121-122.
21 Rural farmworkers, usually without any mountaineering experience, were hired as porters, but were then
expected to undertake rope climbing while carrying the gear and provisions. At the mountain campsite, their
job was to make fires, cook and keep the site clean - Khan, “The Politics of Mountaineering,” 8.
22 Mountain Club, “Constitution,” 1.
23 Mountain Club of South Africa. Extract from newspaper, c04 November 1891. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.1 Vol. I, 23/10/1891 – 20/11/1895, BC 1421 MCSA.
24 Mountain Club of South Africa. The Mountain Club Sixth Ordinary Monthly Meeting, 06 April 1892.
Special Collections, University of Cape Town, B1.1 Vol. I, 23/10/1891 – 20/11/1895, BC 1421 MCSA.
25 Burman, A Peak to Climb, 17.
26 For some years, the MCSA produced a list of volunteer guides which was kept by the Cape Peninsula
Publicity Association - Mountain Club of South Africa. The Mountain Club – An Information Brochure, 1919.
Special Collections, University of Cape Town, M1.5 Books published by the MCSA, Cape Town Section, BC
1421 MCSA.
27 Muriel Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, to the end of 1976 (Johannesburg: South
African Institute of Race Relations, 1978), 1.
28 Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 1-8; Hermann Giliomee and Lawrence Schlemmer,
From Apartheid to Nation-Building (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1989), 13-21.
29 Vivian Bickford-Smith, “A ‘special tradition of multi-racialism?’ Segregation in Cape Town in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,” in The Angry Divide – Social and Economic History of the Western
Cape, eds. Wilmot James and Mary Simons (Cape Town: David Philip, 1989.), 47.
30 Africans were forcibly removed to Uitvlugt (later renamed Ndabeni) Christopher Saunders, “The
Creation of Ndabeni – Urban Segregation and African Resistance in Cape Town,” in Studies in the History of
Cape Town, vol.1, ed. Christopher Saunders (Cape Town, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape
Town, 1984): 171-172.
31 T.R.H. Davenport and Christopher Saunders, South Africa – A Modern History (Great Britain: Macmillan
Press Ltd., 2000).
32 This law decreed that Africans could only own or rent land in the tiny ‘scheduled’ areas for Black
occupation - Essy M. Letsoalo, Land Reform in South Africa A Black Perspective (Johannesburg:
Skotaville, 1987), 35.
33 Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 2-3.
34 The Representation of Natives Act, 1936 placed African voters in the Cape on a separate voters’ roll to
elect three White members to Parliament - Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 1.
35 ‘Influx control’ measures, particularly in the Western Cape from the mid-1940s onwards, severely
restricted the freedom of movement into urban areas Ian Goldin, Making Race: The Politics and
Economics of Coloured Identity in South Africa (London: Longman, 1987), 71.
36 Bickford-Smith, “A ‘special tradition of multi-racialism?’ 47.
37 Mohammed Adhikari, Not White Enough, Not Black Enough – Racial Identity in the South African Colored
Community (Cape Town: Double Storey Books, 2005), 12.
38 Gavin Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall – A History of South African ‘Coloured’ Politics (Cape Town:
David Philip, 1987), 26, 30.
39 Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 20.
40 In 1926 Abdurahman helped to convene the first Non-European Convention, which aimed to promote
Black unity - Goldin, Making Race, 38.
41 Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 81.
42 As Curry’s own justification made clear - Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 81.
43 The League only allowed African teachers at Coloured schools (a tiny minority) to join the organisation in
1934 - Adhikari, Not White Enough, Not Black Enough, 79, 95.
44 Mohammed Adhikari, “Let us live for our children”: The Teachers’ League of South Africa, 1913 1940
(Cape Town: UCT Press and Buchu Books, 1993), 22.
45 Adhikari, “Let us live for our children”, 17-18.
46 Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 124-125.
47 The term ‘Malays’ was erroneously given to Cape Muslims, who were the descendants of slaves from
Mozambique, East Africa, India, Sri Lanka and the Indonesian Archipelago; as well as political exiles from
the Dutch East Indies; and indigenous people who converted to Islam.
48 Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 128.
49 Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall, 128.
50 Goldin, Making Race, 55.
51 Goldin, Making Race, 56.
52 Goldin, Making Race, 55-59; Farieda Khan, “The Origins of the Non-European Unity Movement,”
(Research Essay, BA Honours, History, University of Cape Town, 1976), 133.
53 John Nauright, Sport, Culture and Identities in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip, 1997), 43.
54 Andre Odendaal, “South Africa’s Black Victorians: Sport and Society. In South Africa in the Nineteenth
Century,” in Pleasure, Profit and Proselytism – British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad, 1800 - 1914 ,
ed. by J.A. Mangan (London: Frank Cass, 1988), 197.
55 Odendaal, “South Africa’s Black Victorians”, 198-199; 207.
56 Vivian Bickford Smith, “Meanings of Freedom”, in Breaking the Chains - Slavery and its Legacy in the
Nineteenth Century Cape Colony, eds. Nigel Worden and Clifton Crais (USA: Indiana University Press,
1993), 309.
57 District Six Museum, Fields of Play: Football Memories and Forced Removals in Cape Town – A District
Six Museum Exhibition Catalogue (Cape Town: District Six and Basler Afrika Bibliographic Publication,
2010), 151; Nauright, Sport, Culture and Identities in South Africa, 50-51; Andre Odendaal, The Story of an
African Game: Black cricketers and the unmasking of one of cricket’s greatest myths, South Africa, 1850
2003 (Cape Town, David Philip, 2003), 61-62.
58 Andre Odendaal et al., Cricket and Conquest – The History of South African Cricket Retold , 1795-1910,
vol.1 (Cape Town: BestRed, 2016), 235.
59 Nauright, Sport, Culture and Identities, 65; Odendaal, The Story of an African Game, 65.
60 Odendaal, “South Africa’s Black Victorians”, 207.
61 Nauright, Sport, Culture and Identities, 50.
62 District Six Museum, Fields of Play, 151-152.
63 Albert Grundlingh, Andre Odendaal, and Burridge Spies, Beyond the Tryline – Rugby and South African
Society (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1995), 30.
64 Wiesahl Taliep, “Belletjiesbos, Draper Street and the Vlak – Coloured Neighborhoods of Claremont before
the Group Areas Act,” African Studies 60, 1 (2001): 69.
65 District Six Museum, Fields of Play, 44, 52, 58. The case of Bluebells Football Club, in trying to gain entry
to the CDFA shows just how difficult it was to break down anti-Muslim prejudice, as Bluebells had to form the
Wynberg Action Committee before the discriminatory clause was finally lifted - Rashied Cloete interviewed by
Francois Cleophas, 07 April 2008, Interview Transcript, p,12, District Six Museum Archives, Sports Memory
Project.
66 District Six Museum, Fields of Play, 58.
67 The authorities had deliberately targeted African communities in urban areas such as District Six, forcibly
removing them, not only in the wake of the bubonic plague in 1901 and the establishment of Ndabeni, but
also after the establishment of Langa in 1927 – Christopher Saunders, “From Ndabeni to Langa,” in Studies
in the History of Cape Town, vol.1, ed. Christopher Saunders (Cape Town, Centre for African Studies,
University of Cape Town, 1984): 223.
68 Ian Goldin. Making Race: The Politics and Economics of Coloured Identity in South Africa. (London:
Longman, 1987): 35-36.
69 Father Noel, “Letter”, The Cowley Evangelist, May 1908, 115.
70 Janet K.H. Hodgson, “A History of Zonnebloem College, 1858 to 1870 – A Study of Church and Society
(Masters thesis, University of Cape Town, 1975), 260-261.
71 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Irwin Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
72 Brian Brock, former member of CPMC, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 08 February 2016).
73 Brian Brock, former member of CPMC, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 19 October 2015).
74 The Gools were a prosperous merchant family, whose son Dr Goolam Gool and daughters, Minnie and
Jane, later became involved in radical politics South African History Online, 2005.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file%20uploads%20/a_tribute_to_minnie_gool.pdf
75 District Six Museum, Transcripts of interview with Minnie Gool, August 2000, Digging Deeper Exhibition,
District Six Museum Archives.
76 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Terence Fredericks by Linda Fortune, 14 October 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
77 Rudolph was very politically active, he was on the Executive of the Municipal Workers Association and
was a member of the Unity Movement, as well as the Fourth International, a Trotskyite group based in Cape
Town District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Ian Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September
1999, Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
78 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Ian Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
79 Mountain Club of South Africa. Annual General Meeting, 11 December 1931. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
80 Mountain Club of South Africa. A Meeting of the General Committee, 13 April 1931. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
81 In the minutes of a meeting held on 13 July 1931 by the MCSA, makes reference to “the recent formation
of the Cape Province Mountain Club (non-European)” - Mountain Club of South Africa. A Meeting of the
General Committee, 13 July 1931. Special Collections, University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 0
11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
82 Sydney Alexander, CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 25 January 2016).
83 One of the oldest current members of the CPMC, who joined in 1956, remembers being given this
information by older members of the Club – Alexander, interview.
84 Mountain Club of South Africa, “Non-European Club,” Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa 34
(1932): 130.
85 Mountain Club of South Africa. A Meeting of the General Committee, 13 July 1931. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
86 Cape Province Mountain Club, “CPMC”, 2011.
http://capeprovince-mountainclub.co.za/index.php/cpmc
87 Cape Province Mountain Club, “CPMC.”
88 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History of the Cape Province Mountain Club,” 2011.
http://capeprovince-mountainclub.co.za/index.php/about
89 CPMC, “Cape Province Mountain Club.”
90 CPMC, “Cape Province Mountain Club.”
91 Helen February, former CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 26 June 2009).
92 A reference to the existence of this category of workers was made in The Cape Standard – Anonymous,
“Mountain Tragedy makes news,” The Cape Standard, December 13, 1938, 10.
93 Darrel Abrahams, CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 17 July 2009).
94 George Manuel and Denis Hatfield, District Six (Cape Town: Longmans Southern Africa, 1967), 101.
95 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
96 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
97 Brian Brock, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 02 February, 2016).
98 Edmund February, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 29 August 2017).
99 CPMC, “Cape Province Mountain Club.”
100 Eventually to become the mother of well-known climber and botanist, Dr Ed February.
101 Helen February, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 25 June 2009).
102 Ed February, interview.
103 Helen February, interview.
104 Helen February, interview.
105 Ed February, interview.
106 It seems that by July 1931, the CPMC had already been granted the use of the hut - Mountain Club of
South Africa. A Meeting of the General Committee, 13 July 1931. Special Collections, University of Cape
Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
107 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.” This could not, however, be verified from a perusal of
the City Council Minutes for 1931 Cape Town City Council, Minutes of Council Meetings, March –
December 1931. Western Cape Archives and Record Service, 3CT 1/1/1/85-86. Nor was any confirmation
found in the Minutes of the Parks and Improvement Committee, which dealt with applications from sports
organisations for access to Council infrastructure and facilities - Cape Town City Council, Minutes of
Meetings of the Parks and Improvement Committee, January – December 1931. Western Cape Archives and
Record Service, 3CT 1/4/5/4/1/22 – 1/4/5/4/1/24.
108 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
109 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015.
110 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015.
111 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015.
112 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Colleen Knipe-Solomon by Linda Fortune, 11 May 2000,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
113 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015.
114 Anonymous, “Coloured Climber finds bodies of missing men,” The Cape Standard, December 13 1938.
115 Mountain Club of South Africa. Annual General Meeting, 13 December 1946. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.8 Minute Book VIII, 09 June 1941 – 14 December 1949, p.133. BC 1421 MCSA.
116 The photographic collection held by the District Six Museum, depicts groups of District Six youths
climbing Table Mountain during the 1940s and 1950s, showing the popularity of both hiking, camping and
rope climbing by these young enthusiasts - District Six Museum. Photographs donated by David McAdam,
Terence Fredericks and Irwin Combrinck, Table Mountain Photographic Collection, District Six Museum
Archives.
117 Combrinck grew up to become a teacher and later a medical doctor. He subsequently became a founder
member of the District Six Museum and one of its trustees District Six Museum Foundation, “List of
Trustees”, January 1996: 1.
118 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Ian Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
119 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Ian Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
120 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Ian Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
121 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Ian Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
122 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Vincent Kolbe by Linda Fortune, 15 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
123 Shane Graham and John Walters, ed., Langston Hughes and the South African Drum Generation: The
Correspondence (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 78.
124 Shaun Viljoen, Richard Rive – A Partial Biography (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2013), 28.
125 The Representation of Natives Act, 1936 placed African voters in the Cape on a separate voters’ roll to
elect three White members to Parliament - Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 1.
126 ‘Influx control’ measures, particularly in the Western Cape from the mid-1940s onwards, severely
restricted the freedom of movement into urban areas - Goldin, Making Race, 71.
127 Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 5.
128 The Asiatic Land Tenure and Indian Representation Act of 1946 restricted land and franchise rights in
Natal and the Transvaal - Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 2, 6.
129 The Coloured Affairs Department dealt exclusively with the administration of the lives of those deemed
to be Coloured - Khan, “The Origins of the Non-European Unity Movement”, 41.
130 Khan, “The Origins of the Non-European Unity Movement”, 42-43; 44-51.
131 V. Bickford-Smith, “Representations of Cape Town on the eve of apartheid: Presenting a Social Portrait,”
Paper presented at Africa’s Urban Past Conference, London, June 1996, 14.
132 Ibid, 14.
133 National Veld Trust, “Membership Form,” VeldTrust News 1 (1944): 4.
134 R.H. Compton, Kirstenbosch Garden for a Nation, 1913-1963 (Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers,
1965), 45.
135 This was clear in the case of the Wildlife Society which, instead of admitting Blacks, assisted in the
formation of a separate conservation body for Africans in 1963. While the Wildlife Society members involved
in its formation were motivated by a genuine desire to involve Blacks in conservation, it was admitted that the
need for a separate organisation was due in part, to the political conservatism of most of its membership
Farieda Khan, “Towards Environmentalism: A socio-political evaluation of trends in South African
Conservation History, 1910-1976, with a specific focus on the role of Black conservation organisations” (PhD
thesis, Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town, 2001), 198-202.
136 Khan “Towards Environmentalism”, 55.
137 Mountain Club of South Africa. Annual General Meeting, 11 December 1931. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
138 So put out was the MCSA by the news, that its Secretary was tasked with “enquiring from the City Clerk
the term under which the Cape Province Mountain Club had been granted the use of the Gordon’s Hut” -
Mountain Club of South Africa. A Meeting of the General Committee, 13 July 1931. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
139 Mountain Club of South Africa. A Meeting of the General Committee, 09 November 1931. Special
Collections, University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA.
140 Mountain Club of South Africa. Annual General Meeting, 11 December 1931. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.7 Vol. VII, 13/12/1926 - 11/06/1941, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South
Africa.
141 Khan, “The Politics of Mountaineering,” 8-10.
142 See, for example, F. Berrisford, “North of SandfonteinIn the Southern Cederbergen,” The Journal of
the Mountain Club of South Africa, Being no. 38 for the Year 1935 (1936), 60.
143 Mountain Club of South Africa. Annual General Meeting, 13 December 1946. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.8 Minute Book VIII, 09 June 1941 – 14 December 1949, p.133. BC 1421 MCSA.
144 Mountain Club of South Africa. Annual General Meeting, 13 December 1946. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.8 Minute Book VIII, 09 June 1941 – 14 December 1949, p.133. BC 1421 MCSA.
145 Mountain Club of South Africa. Annual General Meeting, 13 December 1946. Special Collections,
University of Cape Town, B1.8 Minute Book VIII, 09 June 1941 – 14 December 1949, p.133. BC 1421 MCSA.
146 Lize Odendaal, “Climbing to Greater Heights, Together”, Tribute, November, 1993,102.
147 Oswald Haupt, “Editor’s Comment”, Cape Province Mountain Club Mountaineering Report, 4 (2010), 2.
148 “Cape Province Mountain Club”, CPMC.
149 Odendaal, “Climbing to Greater Heights”, 102; People’s Post, “Mountain Club turns 75”, December 05,
2006.
150 Paul Hendricks, CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 05 October 2015).
151 Knipe-Solomon, interview; Brian Brock, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 15 May 2017).
152 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015).
153 Sydney Alexander, CPMC member interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 11 June 2016).
154 Burman, A Peak to Climb, 52.
155 Ed February, interview.
156 Ed February, interview.
157 Brian Brock, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 08 February 2016).
158 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015).
159 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015).
160 Darrell Abrahams, CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 07 July 2009).
161 District Six Museum, transcript of interview with Sheila Rolls by Linda Fortune, 26 April 2000, Table
Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives; Linda Fortune, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town,
10 May 2016).
162 Helen February, interview.
163 Colleen Knipe-Solomons, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 22 June 2009).
164 District Six Museum, transcript of interview with Colleen Knipe-Solomons by Linda Fortune, 11 May
2000, Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
165 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
166 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History,”
167 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
168 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
169 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
170 Burman, A Peak to Climb, 52.
171 Patrick Pasqualle, current CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (08 May 2013).
172 Patrick Pasqualle, current CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 17 August 2017).
173 Copies of the Mountain Lookout editions produced in the 1960s do not appear to have survived,
although a few early 1970s editions of its revived version, are still in existence.
174 District Six Museum, transcript of interview with George Gangat by Linda Fortune, 05 October 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
175 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015.
176 District Six Scouts met at the Hyman Lieberman Institute and went on regular mountain camping trips
Fortune, interview.
177 George Gangat, interview by Linda Fortune, 05 October 1999, Interview Transcript, District Six Museum
Archives.
178 This was the experience of a young Sea Scout in District Six, who was first taken up the mountain by
McAdam in the late 1950s Armien Harris, former District Six resident, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape
Town, 26 May 2010).
179 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Joe Schaffers by Linda Fortune, 08 March, 2000, Table
Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives.
180 Joe Schaffers, a former District Six resident, remembers that as a teenager in the mid-to-late 1950s, he
and a group of friends would camp in Table Mountain caves over long weekends and especially at Easter
Joe Schaffers, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 28 August 2009).
181 Knipe-Solomon, interview, 22 June 2009.
182 Fortune, interview.
183 Deborah Posel, The Making of Apartheid, 1948 1961: Conflict and Compromise (Oxford, England:
Clarendon Press, 1991), 1.
184 Posel, The Making of Apartheid, 1, 8.
185 Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 16.
186 Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa,71
187 Horrell, Laws affecting Race Relations in South Africa, 113.
188 Khan, “Towards Environmentalism,” 113.
189 Khan, “Towards Environmentalism,” 114-116.
190 No references to any meetings have been found in either the Annual Report for 1957 or the minutes of
meetings held during 1957 – Mountain Club of South Africa, “Annual Report, 1957,” Journal of the Mountain
Club of South Africa 60 (1958): 68; Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of all Meetings, January -
December 1957. Special Collections, University of Cape Town, B1.10 Minute Book X, 25 March 1955 – 18
December 1961. BC 1421 MCSA.
191 So keen was the Club to maintain its cordial links with European climbing clubs, that one of its members
volunteered to attend the centenary celebrations of the London-based British Alpine Club on behalf of the
Club, at his own expense in that same year Mountain Club of South Africa, “Annual Reports, 1957,”
Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 60 (1958): 68.
192 Khan “Towards Environmentalism”, 116-117.
193 Khan “Towards Environmentalism”, 120.
194 As noted on the title page: Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 67 (1964).
195 Mountain Club of South Africa, “75th Anniversary Dinner,” Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa,
69 (1966): 9.
196 Jews were not welcome in the Club (although this was an unwritten rule) and were excluded from
membership until the 1940s – Khan, “The Politics of Mountaineering”, 8.
197 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 13 January 1954. B1.9,
vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
198 For example, Athlone High School was established in 1946; South Peninsula High School in 1950;
Alexander Sinton High School in 1951; Harold Cressy High School in 1951; and Wittebome High School in
1956 See www.athlone.co.za/community/education/athlone_high.php; Loretta Fleurs, “South Peninsula
High School Through the Ages”, 40th Anniversary Magazine (1996);
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Sinton_Secondary_School; http://cressy.co.za/history-of-harold-
cressy-high-school; www.petervalcarcel.tripod.com/id2.html
199 District Six Museum, Transcript of interview with Ian Combrinck by Linda Fortune, 14 September 1999,
Table Mountain Interviews, District Six Museum Archives. The mountain hiking tradition was still flourishing
when this author attended the school during the 1960s, and older students led the hikes.
200 Pasqualle, interview, 17 August 2017.
201 Andy Johnston, former mountaineer, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 24 August 2017); Stephen
Joyi, former Livingstone High School student, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 30 June 2010).
202 As a child in the mid-1950s, Patrick Pasqualle recalls regularly going for mountain walks by himself,
venturing further and further up Devils Peak - Pasqualle, interview, 17 August 2017.
203 Hugh Stephens, whose mother’s family came from Protea Village, often stayed over during the 1960s,
becoming a nature lover as a result of the many mountain hikes undertaken during his visits Hugh
Stephens, CPMC member, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, 13 February 2016).
204 Johnston, interview.
205 Johnston, interview.
206 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 09 March1955. B1.9, vol
IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
207 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 09 February 1955. B1.9,
vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
208 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 13 January 1954. B1.9,
vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
209 Armien Harris, former resident of District Six, interview by Farieda Khan (Cape Town, May 22, 2010).
210 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 13 January 1954. B1.9,
vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
211 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 10 February 1954.
B1.9, vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
212 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 09 January 1957.
B1.10, vol X, 25/03/1955-18/12/1961, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
213 For example, the MCSA, concerned about “dirty campsites” on Table Mountain, resolved to “approach
the leaders of the Non-European mountain club and ask them to request their members to keep their camp
sites clean” - Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 08 June 1960.
B1.10, vol X, 25/03/1955-18/12/1961, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
214 Mountain Club of South Africa. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 12 January 1955. B1.9,
vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.
215 February, interview.
216 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
217 For example, numerous Journal articles refer to the friendly assistance and warm hospitality provided at
Brodie’s farm in Worcester in the early years of the twentieth century J.K. McGhie, “Through Zanddrift
Kloof to Matroosberg,” Mountain Club Annual 12 (1908): 14; Mountain Club of South Africa, “The Easter
Excursion, 1920,” Annual of the Mountain Club of South Africa 23 (1920): 22.
218 A former CPMC member confirmed that it was not always possible for them to cross White farmland in
order to access mountains in rural areas, forcing them in one instance, to retrace their footsteps back up a
kloof in order to get out of the area – Knipe-Solomon, interview, 22 June 2009.
219 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
220 Crain Soudien, “District Six: From Protest to Protest”, in The Struggle for District Six - Past and Present ,
eds. Shamil Jeppie and Crain Soudien (Cape Town, Buchu Books, 1990): 144.
221 Cape Province Mountain Club, “A Brief History.”
222 Brock, interview, 19 October 2015.
223 Nauright, Sport, Culture and Identities in South Africa, 72.
224 Farieda Khan, “Legacies of a non-level playing field”, Weekend Argus, 20 September 2014.
225 Desai et al., Blacks in Whites A Century of Cricket Struggles in KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg:
University of Natal Press, 2002), 202.
226 Albert Grundlingh et al., Beyond the Tryline – Rugby and South African Society. (Johannesburg: Ravan
Press, 1995), 51; Odendaal, The Story of an African Game, 105-106; Peter Alegi, Laduma! Soccer, Politics
and Society in South Africa, from its Origins to 2010 (Pietermaritzburg: KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010), 107-
108.
227 District Six Museum, Fields of Play, 58.
228 Robert Archer and Antoine Bouillon, The South African Game – Sport and Racism (London, Zed Press,
1982), 229.
229 Douglas Booth, “The South African Council on Sport and the Political Antimonies of the Sports Boycott,”
Journal of Southern African Studies 23:1 (1997): 55.
230 Grundlingh, Odendaal and Spies, Beyond the Tryline, 30.
231 Brock, interview 15 May 2017. It is noteworthy that Galilet’s first name (Neville) was not a ‘Muslim’ name,
but was one generally accepted as denoting ‘Christian’ religious status, at a time when Muslims nearly
always signalled their religious affiliation by their generally-accepted ‘Muslim’ first names.
... It is absurd to think that boxing was any different to other sport codes in oppressed communities during a time when society was shaped by segregation and ethnic sectarianism. 106 The South African boxing narrative in these communities also reveals the marginalisation, even absence, of women in traces and accounts of South African boxing history. Future research needs to address this vacuum, if the intention is to create a new South African narrative. ...
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The history of boxing in Cape Town, South Africa, remains a minor focus of study amongst sport historians, compared to rugby, soccer or cricket. This article endeavours to address this situation by presenting a boxing narrative from 1932 to 1935. A literature review on boxing history in the British and American world is used to introduce the reader to this narrative. It shows how organised boxing in Cape Town's black communities was historically rooted in all classes of people. It also reveals how the current body of academic research on black boxing is gaining momentum but is still in its infancy in South Africa. There are, however, many popular narratives from which researchers can draw. A methodological account is presented that outlines the reconstructionist method of historical research. Next, the article proceeds with a history of organised boxing, and it is shown how this sport was driven by class considerations from the nineteenth century onwards. The article concludes with the notion that professional boxing brought relief for promoters, boxers and gamblers during the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s. This ran parallel with the 'upliftment' project of the club movement with its theme of 'keep the boys off the street'. ARTICLE HISTORY
... The communities living adjacent to the mountains (especially the District Six community) consisted of predominantly coloured, but also smaller numbers of African, people. 6 The young people in these communities would regularly go rambling on the mountains close to their homes (Khan 2013aand 2013b, Khan 2017. In particular, District Six, at the foot of Table Mountain, would be among the most important nurseries of mountaineering talent. ...
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This paper analyses the politics of mountaineering in Cape Town, a sport that was first undertaken by the colonial elite during the late nineteenth century; while the underclasses (the servants and labouring poor) had become intimately familiar with Table Mountain as part of their daily work of gathering and chopping wood. The racial hierarchy of colonial society, which was founded on unequal power relations between black and white, was reflected in the sphere of mountaineering, as would be seen in the origins and early development of the exclusively white Mountain Club of South Africa (MCSA) - an organisation deeply embedded in the privileged political establishment. Similarly, the racialised power relations of the twentieth century would be reflected in its distant, paternalistic relationship with black mountaineers and mountain clubs. Through an exploration and analysis of the different developmental trajectories of these clubs and their interaction in the socio-political context of the late colonial era to the end of the apartheid era, this paper will explore and analyse the politics of mountaineering in Cape Town.
Chapter
This groundbreaking anthology provides a transnational view of the use of physical culture practices to strengthen, discipline, and reimagine the human body. Exploring theses of colonialism, gender disparities, and race relations, this international examination of bodily practices is a must read for all sport historians and those interested in physical training and its meanings. Erudite, solid, enlightening, this is a truly valuable book for our field.
Article
Full-text available
The story of mountaineering in Cape Town is often narrowly confined to the history of the Mountain Club of South Africa, which was founded in the late nineteenth century as an exclusively white private interest organisation. However, this article, by going beyond the mainstream into the hidden history of mountaineering at the tip of Africa, aims to show that this history is far more comprehensive, complicated and diverse than that projected by the conventional view. **Published in New Agenda, July 2022 [**Important Note: This article is incorrectly listed as being published in 'New Political Economy' on this website & despite numerous attempts to change it, as well as emails to Researchgate, I can't get it to reflect the correct journal, which is 'New Agenda', July 2022, Issue 85, pp27-31]
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