Umbogintwini

“There are many factories belonging to ICI and its’ associated companies and some are much older than Umbogintwini, but there can surely be few that have a more interesting history.”
(Mr. W. V. Blewett  –  factory manager 1922 – 1928 when Kynochs was part of Imperial Chemical Industries)

 

This website is in four parts.  Click onto one of the following or read all parts:

P1. My own story with some pictures, sketches and links to other sites
P2. Additional information
P3. Comments from readers
P4. Gallery

Part 1

This updated version follows extra information that I have obtained as well as comments and information supplied by the Toti-ites – 60’s and 70’s Facebook Club and others. The great comments provided at the end of my website have also triggered many memories for me. I have responded to all those who have contributed by using their personal email addresses rather than on the public forum, so thanks to all for the interest shown.

Umbogintwini as most of us knew is the anglicized version of the Zulu word Mbokodweni or eZimbokodweni for the “river where round stones are collected” i.e. as used in grinding corn. The anglicized version was in any case too long for most with the name being abbreviated to Twini. My cousin from Durban, who also lived for a short period in the village, further abbreviated the name (tongue in cheek) to MBog. In the same way adjoining areas of Amanzimtoti to the south and Isipingo to the north were usually abbreviated to Toti or Pingo. By comparison adjoining Athlone Park retained its full name.

My name is Ken Grubb and I lived in Twini village between 1955 and 1975. I felt the need to put pen to paper after recently googling an “aerial image of Umbogintwini” and was shocked to see that the village area has been almost totally obliterated by new works including high density residential units, shopping centres and commercial works. Other than the remaining parts of Chamberlain and Oppenheimer Road, it looks like the area has been written out of history. The Jubilee Hall and war memorial, formerly opposite the corner of Oppenheimer and Highbury Roads, have even been demolished although the Catholic church cemetery is still in place. The 9 hole golf course is now covered with shopping centres. Also I could not find any composite information on the village which gave me further motivation to produce this article. Even the museum that had been established in the early 2000s was demolished but is now in the process of being re-established at the head office.

I moved to Highbury Road in 1955 when my father got a job at Kynochs, as it was still referred to until the 1960s. Growing up in Twini would fulfil most boys’ dreams with all the outdoor activities from ‘bundu bashing’ to catching karanteen off the rocks at low tide at Twini Beach. Collecting was almost a Victorian way of life whether it was stamps, coins, butterflies, birds and even snakes. The village, being almost a self-contained entity, was probably the last vestige of that classic village lifestyle of old. Everything seemed more or less as it was in my time, even up to the last of my regular visits to Twini in 2002 when I took some photographs of Highbury Road. If I had known. what devastation was to follow I would have taken many more photographs around the village.

After Umbogintwini Government School I went to the Kingsway High School of old in Doonside then completed my compulsory military training in the South Africa Air Force in 1971 before completing my first degree in Geology at the University of Natal. My wife Tricia and I decided to make a move to Brisbane Australia in 1981 having watched a movie set on Hayman Island on the Barrier Reef. We selected Brisbane because it is roughly on the same latitude as Durban  –  amazing logic. Not knowing anyone in Brisbane, we now look back at the optimism of our youth. Anyway my qualifications and engineering geology experience held us in good stead so we made quick headway in our new land. I obtained a Masters in Applied Science at Queensland University of Technology in 1989 and then got registration as a Registered Professional Engineer in Queensland and a Chartered Professional Engineer in Australia in the same year, having being the first geologist to my knowledge to obtain the Queensland accreditation. I subsequently set up Moreton Geotechnical Services P/L (www.moretongeotech.com.au), which has been operating for 32 years, and now specialises in building over abandoned coal mines in the Ipswich region. Our three kids are all true blue and all have completed degrees and are moving on with their own lives.

My memories covered below, which are in no particular order, are far from comprehensive and are planned to be updated from time to time. For this reason I have left a blog at the end for others from the Twini area who are interested in adding to my story and supplying photos if possible. Hopefully my article will also bring back many memories for others.

Names where applicable have been restricted to first names to protect the privacy of those mentioned unless subsequent permission is given to include surnames. The spelling of some Zulu names in particular are not necessarily correct as I have used the letters to produce the nearest English pronunciation. Both imperial and metric measurements have been used.

Finally the information below is based on my recollections as well as information from books, internet references and other sources that I have generally provided throughout my article.

Ex Twini-ites are now spread out far and wide as revealed in the comments section in Part 3.  Comments have come in from Netherlands, England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

Reference:  Modderfontein Museum
Circa 1955 aerial photo
NOTE: the earthworks for the re-development of the golf course and sportsfield, no Jubilee Hall, no lower field at Twini School etc.

Twini is located on an ancient sand dune subparalel to the coastline at between 80m and 90m above sea level. The material in the dune sand was laid down up to 2.5 million years ago and originally comprised four main components, i.e. well rounded quartz grains, shell fragments, some feldspar grains and iron–rich grains. The shell fragments were subsequently leached out with time, the feldspar weathered into clay and the iron rich grains ‘rusted’ to give the red colour that we know, also the name Berea Red Sand. It is this iron-rich clayey sand soil, together with the sub-tropical rainfall, that gives the luxuriant natural vegetation and good gardens. The Berea Red Sand is underlain by sedimentary Ecca Shale which was laid down approximately 300 million years ago and generally not visible in the village area. The shale is in turn underlain by the Dwyka Tillite formation from an ice age approximately 350 million years ago. The tillite is visible along the banks of the Twini River near the old road bridge crossing.

Beach rock is by comparison a very young rock formed where high shell concentrations have been ‘dumped’ close the shore line. I was amazed on one occasion at Twini beach to find a rusted penknife in solid shell beach rock, the leaching shells from the subtropical rainfall having formed the cement to ‘glue’ all the pieces together!

Another very modern ‘rock’ that I discovered was around a spring in the deep valley area near the factory’s Indian village. A large volume of crystal clear, but iron-rich, water exited from a vertical hole near the base of the steep slope. Rain water percolating down through the red sands carried the iron with it. The iron content on exposure to air rapidly hardened over all the leaf matter to form an ironstone with ‘fossil’ leaves.

The area of Twini has been inhabited since the early stone age i.e. more than 250,000 years ago. Natal pre-European habitation has extended through the stone age to the iron age up to 1824 AD with the inland Duma San ‘bushmen’, and coastal Khoi hunter gather ‘strandlopers’, being present for thousands of years. The ancestors of the Zulus, i.e. the Nguni-speaking agro-pastoralists apparently arrived in the area about 800 – 1000 years ago. Bartholomeu Dias sailed around the tip of Africa in the 1480s, Vasco de Gama landed on the Natal coast in 1497, Jan van Riebeeck established a permanent Dutch settlement at Cape Town in 1652 and in 1824 the proper settlement of Durban, 23 km to the north east of Twini, commenced.

The book titled “Southern Land” by A.R. Willcox gives good coverage of South African life from millions of years ago, through the cultures in the stone and iron ages, and then up to coastal voyages around parts of African from as early as 600 BC with other voyages and human movement into European settlement times.

My own contact  with the ancient history of Twini came to the fore in the mid-1960s as a teenager when electrification of the railways involved the removal of the original road bridge to the factory and excavating downwards about 10 – 15m from original ground level to form the banks mainly on the western side.  I would scramble across the bright red exposed sandbank to collect a large range of artifacts including a stone grinder, stone axes, a lovely quartzite scraper that fitted perfectly into the palm of my hand, as well as plenty of clay pottery. No matter how hard that I collected I was never able to form a complete pot when sticking the pieces together. Drilled ostrich shell  small discs and even irregular shaped glass beads for necklaces or similar were found in the upper levels with the full zone comprising about 5m to 10m down from about 2m below ground level. The burnt out vertical charcoal ‘posts’ of a kraal were also exposed in the bank. I presumed that my deepest finds were of middle to late stone age, i.e. between 25,000 and 180,000 years of age. The glass beads in the upper levels probably went back to the 1700s or 1800s. There was no slag (left over from the production of iron) at that location however a large amount of slag became exposed close to the surface when the sports field, near the later Dickens Road bridge crossing of the railway line, was excavated. That near surface location was probably a late iron age production facility, probably of 1600 to 1800 AD vintage. Excavations for the ‘Surfview’ units above the beach at “Windy Corner” in Athlone Park in the late 60s also exposed extensive shell middens with a range of implements including a small cylindrical indurated shale implement (possible snuff grinder) and a broken bone implement about 100mm long resembling a knife blade and believed to be for prizing flesh out of opened shellfish

The factory and village came about as a result of Mr Arthur Chamberlain (uncle of British PM Neville Chamberlain) seeing an opportunity to supply explosives to the South African gold mines at a cheaper rate than he could supply from the Kynochs factory in Arklow in Ireland. Mr Kynoch had resigned by then and Mr Chamberlain became Chairman. The Natal Government in 1907  (prior to Union in 1910) granted the company a lease on 1,400 acres (566 hectares) of land  Twini which was originally part of a reserve. Clearing of the land even included the use of Indian elephants with their Indian mahouts.

Reference: Modderfontein Museum
Building locations by Mike Mulholland

The factory, originally known as Kynochs Ltd, was set up to produce explosives as well as chemicals including nitric and sulphuric acid needed in the production of the explosives. The factory came into production in 1908. The name changed to African Explosives and Industries in 1924 before the ramping up of the production of explosives during WWII when the Royal Navy maintained a presence when purpose-built double storey houses for the officers were constructed, with some porthole windows on the lower levels, in Highbury Road.

The production of phosphatic fertilizer became progressively more important until that component of manufacture passed to the Modderfontein plant in the 1960s, by which time (1966) the operation had become known as African Explosives and Chemical Industries, one of the many subsidiaries of the Anglo American empire. The nitrogen plant, the tioxide plant and the perspex plant also came into production in the late 1960s. The factory remained under the single AECI umbrella in those days. Messrs Flack, Rice, Pike and Inggs were the factory managers during my time.

Reference: Modderfontein Museum
Circa 1960 building locations by Mike Mulholland

Explosions at the factory were not uncommon and on one occasion a monkey also jumped into the sub-station near the factory entry gate resulting in a huge flame and explosion that shook the whole district. The weekly air raid siren fire practice, which could be heard throughout the village, was quite spine-chilling. Tanker loads of sulphuric acid going to Saicor at Umkomaas for the production of rayon were a regular sight along Oppenheimer Road beyond the bottom of our garden and the calendars supplied to employees in the 1960s were high quality prized items.

The South Coast Sun supplement of 3 July 2008, covering 100 years of the Umbogintwini Industrial Complex, provides some interesting further information on the factory and village. The supplement includes a photograph of the staff house in the village.

Reference:  South Coast Sun, 3 July 2008

Mr Warner, interestingly a land surveyor from Brisbane, was contracted to lay out the factory and village. Mr Warner’s residence (after the house that had been built for him in Twini) was a farm in what we now know of as Warner Beach. Multiple generations of the Warner family to this day in Queensland have become land surveyors.

Twenty three men and their families from the Kynochs factory in Arklow, near Dublin in Ireland, moved to the area from 1908 to assist with the construction of the Twini factory with the men living outside of Twini until the first houses were built. Men from other parts of England were also amongst the earliest people to be employed at the factory. Some of the earliest families included Scorer, Weller and Hughes. Pioneer and later families included Kelly, O’Brien, Johnston, Roche and others. The split between the Republic of Ireland and North Ireland in 1922 had as yet not taken place. In May 1910, the first white child in Twini was born to Mr and Mrs Cutler.  Interestingly my recent detailed ‘Y’ DNA test results have revealed that my male line go back to ancient times in Ireland, i.e. around 6,000 – 7,000 years ago. This was a revelation as I know my great grandfather arrived in Durban in the 1870s. Prior to that the men in my Grubb line came from Macclesfield in England and prior to that Dublin in Ireland in the 1700s having all been in the silk weaving industry – see www.frederickwilliamgrubb.com.

Highbury Road, which was the first road for residential construction in the village, became the focus of the earliest amenities buildings and residences. Additional residences and amenity buildings were constructed as the village expanded with Chamberlain Road becoming the next road for development. The name ‘Highbury’ must have had some significance to those early Irish migrants as the other road names are connected to company executives or company managers.

Highbury Road – looking north from near the Jubilee Hall, 2002.

Construction ranged from the early iron-clad on stumps type, to semi-detached single storey with underfloor ventilation, to more modern single storey slab on ground construction as well as double storey construction including for the Royal Navy houses and two small blocks of flats in Oppenheimer and Scully Roads. The “new village” as it was known around Udal Road was constructed in the late 50s and early 60s. Some new single storey houses in Highbury Road, constructed in the early 60s, comprised the more modern slab on ground construction. The double storey “staff” house, originally built for Mr Chamberlain, was subsequently modified for visiting personnel as well as for business lunches. The variable residential architecture, over about 55 years, represented the different eras and development phases of the factory.

African policemen, with their knobkerries, would regularly patrol the village to ensure that the ‘tsotsis’ and ‘skebengas’ did not cause problems.

The village appears to have essentially remained unchanged until December 2004 when 90 hectares comprising the village and golf course was sold to Keystone Investments for their Arbour Town Development.

My sketch above shows much of the village layout and location of its structures as I recall these. The main road access to the village, before the construction of the N2 highway, was via Kingsway and Oppenheimer Road. Oppenheimer Road extended through the village and then via Kynoch Road across the old rail bridge to the time office being the main entry gate to the factory. Pardies service station, the second post office, Theos Supermarket, a butcher and bottle store were located along Oppenheimer Road between Cocking Road and Chamberlain Road. Mr Suddards and then Mr Green were the proprietors of Theo’s Supermarket in my time. St Johns Church was located near the corner of Oppenheimer and Chamberlain Roads with the Jubilee Hall and war memorial being located on the south side of the intersection of Oppenheimer and Highbury Road. The entry to the railway station was (and still is) a short distance further along. After crossing the old railway bridge into Kynoch Road and towards the time office there was the original post office and main electricity substation on the north (right hand) side and Bjorseths original trading store (subsequent distribution centre) on the left. The trading store was subsequently relocated to Prince Street. I still have great memories of the African section of the store, with its strong smell of spices, its Indian salespeople and old Mr Bjorseth (Eddie’s father) who sat near the counter talking to all the customers who came in. I clearly remember meeting John G. in that part of the store in about 1965 when going to buy rubber bands for my new catapult. I was amazed to find out that John, of similar age to me, had flown back from an overseas school to be with his parents for the school holidays. Anyway a weatherboard residence on stumps was also located behind the original post office along the track that followed the railway towards Durban where the dairy was located. This was the only residence located across the railway from the village. Napier fodder (a very tall sugarcane-like cattle feed grass) also occupied the old dairy grounds, the napier fodder being regularly used by coucals to make their round ball-like nests about 5 foot off the ground. The time office prevented public access into the factory grounds however Kynoch Road continued onwards past the sports field on the right and the hospital on the left. Further along the road again was the Indian village on the left and further along and downhill was the sewerage works near the head of the steep sided poorly drained valley on the right which we called the “swamp”. The road then continued downhill to the African sports field and the road bridge over the Twini River. Beyond the bridge, and all through the floodplain to later Prospecton, were sugar cane fields with the Orient club on a hill north of the bridge.

Reference: South Coast Sun, 3 July 2008

A very steep high bare clay bank on the river side of the Orient Club was the location of many birds nest holes including European rollers, bee-eaters and sand martins. Sakabulas (long tailed widow bird) were a common sight in the cane fields and I even found a black-backed Sisticola nest, with eggs, in the cane stubble close to the ground. Their beautiful uniform glossy brick red eggs are possibly the only birds in the world with red eggs.  A hilly area between the bridge and Orient Club (western side) also became a motorbike scramble track which drew crowds from miles around at the weekend. The annual burn-off of the sugarcane leaves resulted in large black smoke clouds and lots of ash at our place when the north easterly winds were blowing. That pollution differed a lot from the white powder that ended up on our verandah at regular intervals when the land breeze was blowing. Our veranda had to be regularly swept and polished as a result. More than 100 youngsters of various age groups and eras lived in and around Highbury Road in my time so there were always a lot of social interactions, perhaps a lot more written memories could follow mine? The Whitely family were one of the families who lived in our road. Mr Jimmy Whitely had a ‘skiffle band’ and they set up a session one night in a garage across the road from our place when the Bakers lived there. The Whiteleys were however more well known for the father, mother and four girls all having names that started with the letter ‘J’. Another lad by the nickname of “Eggy” who lived in the same house after the Whiteleys left, got a lot of attention when his Dad flew back to England in the mid-60s with S.A.A. in a Boeing 707, such were the developments in flying when the average person could travel quickly in style and not have to catch the mail boats.

I lived at 12 Highbury Road with my parents and two brothers and my sister Jenny who was born at the Twini hospital, the rest of us having been born in Durban. In the early 1970s the street numbering was changed for some reason when our house was renumbered 18.  This is the place where the Farringtons also lived for 20 years.

Numbers 16 and 18, previously 10 and 12, Highbury Road. 2002.

Our house was one of the first houses completed around 1910. Our house was very centrally located to most facilities being within 10 minutes or less walk of Pardie’s service station, Theo’s store, the bottle shop and butcher, both the old and new post offices, the Jubilee Hall, tennis courts, swimming pool, squash courts, library, club house, golf course, Bjorseth trading store, railway station, sports field and hospital. The Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian Churches were also within close proximity. An Indian ‘sammy’ with a basket at either end of a sliced bamboo trunk slung over his shoulders would regularly walk around the village selling fresh produce. By the mid-60s however he had made enough money to do his rounds with a Toyota ‘bakkie’. A very regal Indian fellow would also come around to do haircuts for the kids sitting on chairs in the garden. This service was later displaced by Johnny Johnson who after work had a barber’s room in the distribution office, i.e. original Bjorseth store near the time office. Chemist deliveries were made from Newman’s in Toti by an African bloke on his bicycle, which was also the mode of transport for the ice-cream man and many of the boys going to Kingsway High school at Doonside i.e. for those that didn’t want to catch the train. Incidentally boys’ high school education in my day included rifle practice at the school range close to the double storey classrooms, all under the watchful eye of Mr Brunner. Latin was also one of my semester subjects in standard six = year eight. Mr Broderick, who was in the Great Escape, was my standard 6 teacher.  He was the 52nd person to leave the tunnel at Stalag Luft III but was recaptured and luckily survived the Nazis who executed the first fifty men that left the tunnel.  Mr Bazley was a headmaster and Mr Beaumont was the deputy head. One high school bloke by the name of Bert would head towards the station in the morning only to often detour into a large tree in the nature strip at the bottom of our garden. He would wait for both his parents, who worked at Kynochs, to drive over the railway bridge before heading back home across the road from our place, to catch up with his girlfriend and play Elvis music!  Mike and Len also reminded me of the local taxi service provided by Peter McNaught-Davis and his wife.

Anyway our house was a semi-detached three-bedroom rendered brick house with the floor positioned about 3 foot above the ground with some wide undercroft access openings for ventilation purposes. The roof over a 10 foot high ceiling comprised corrugated asbestos. A verandah, with double French type doors, fronted the road with two other entry/exit side doors to the garden via the kitchen and rear of the house. The kitchen originally had a separate pantry room which was subsequently demolished to produce a larger kitchen. The chain-activated toilet, or lavatory as we knew it, was originally a small outhouse contemporary room attached to the house. A new modern type toilet was constructed over the rear garden steps (which were extended) in the mid 60s to provide all weather enclosed access with the house.  The renovations and maintenance of our house, including regular painting every five years or so, was carried out by the company.

Our garden appeared to be huge but in reality it was probably a quarter or third acre lot, with a Cape Honeysuckle fence fronting the shorter boundary to the road, an Australian Myrtle (Lillypilly) fence down the full length of the northern boundary, a Bougainvillea fence down the full length of the southern boundary and a three strand wire fence at the lower end fronting the nature strip above Oppenheimer Road. The land sloped gently to the lower rear boundary before steepening up through the nature strip. Our very long serving housemaid, by the name of Vieena, had her kiah at the bottom left hand side of the garden. Our long term garden man was Gobess, who was replaced by Phineas when Gobess passed away, both travelling daily to our house for work during the weekdays.  We also had chicken runs, bird cages and greenhouses in our garden. My Dad started with the run of bird cages and then got into collecting gems and making jewellery. I still have part of the gem collection in a nice mahogany cabinet with the old ultraviolet light removed. My Dad and brother Clive were however mainly into flowers and orchids in later times. Breeding and selling tropical fish and doing student work at the bottle store paid my university fees.

We had a wonderful garden which had views out to the cooling towers at the old power station at Pinetown to the north, “table top” mountain beyond the large fertilizer shed in the factory to the west and we could also see the smoke from the steam engines over the trees for a long way towards Toti. Our garden included a large makushla tree (with big lucky beans) and a flat crown tree at the front gate, as well as two large mango trees and five very large avocado trees, as well as other native and exotic fruit trees including peach, guava, mulberry and macadamia nuts (which we always knew as Queensland nuts), also bananas, grenadillas (passionfruit) grapes etc. The avos were of two original varieties with elliptical or round fruit with the fruit regularly being over half a kilogram each. The avo variety currently sold in Queensland is not much larger than the size of the pip of our avos of old. The round avos, which we called “butter pears” were our favourites as the fruit was smooth like cheese or butter, whereas the elliptical pears tended to be a bit stringy. The excess round pears, similar in size to bowls, also had the benefit of being able to play bowls with, such were the wasteful conditions that we as kids never appreciated at the time. A high horizontal branch on one of our avo trees also provided good anchor points for our well–used swing. We gained a lot of interest from neighbours one season when a watermelon vine grew up our large mulberry tree with the result that full grown watermelons were hanging like large Christmas decoration balls up to 8 to 10 feet off the ground. Our mangoes were also in demand by the local Indian community, particularly the green ones which were either sliced and eaten with salt or used to make chutney. For a number of years we also had wild spinach growing around our lower fence line. An old Indian bloke used to collect the spinach in big hessian sacks and within a few days he would return with delicious large homemade samoosas with spinach filling. These were always gladly anticipated.

18 (previously 12) Highbury Road, from the rear, 1962

For good international reception my Dad stretched a thin copper wire from our solid state radio for about 30m through two of the avocado trees in the garden, so that we could get “Voice of America” and listen to the count-downs for the space launches from Cape Canaveral.

Guy Fawkes night on 5 November each year was excitedly anticipated at our place. My Uncle Ted would buy boxes of fireworks from his Chinese shop owner friends in Durban and bring these out to our place. Kids, and some adults, from the whole area would come around to take in the fun. We would have a great time with sparklers, squibs, big bangs, roman candles, spinners and rockets. The rockets, including on one occasion one with a clear plastic cylinder with a space man located at the top of the rocket, would be fired off to great heights. Extra fun was also had early the following day to see who could find the left over rocket sticks.

Other activities at different times at our place included raising silkworms to produce diamond and circle shaped bookmarks, making blow pipes, catapults (slingshots) and crossbows, whereas others were into major projects such as making ferro-concrete boats e.g. by Mike and his brother at the end of McGowan Road, where a huge hull was propped up next to their house. Blowpipes were made using different length curtain brass pipe with the darts simply being a pin with a piece of cotton wool for short pipes, or golf tees carefully trimmed for a perfect fit into the pipe with the front comprising a small nail as the point for the long pipes. The reach and accuracy of the long pipes would have made the Amazon Indians proud! Guava branch prongs were best for our catapults and the crossbows were very accurate for 20m or more.

Number 26 Highbury Road (previously number 20), 2002

My good friend John,  from Railway Road, and I had plenty of fun and adventures collecting wild orchids as far away as Shongweni waterfall as well as collecting all sorts of other things and breeding bantams and tropical fish etc. We even built in-ground fish ponds using bricks at both our places. Little did we realise at that time how aggressive cement was on our bare hands, that resulted in the skin on our hands peeling for days afterwards. To this day John has maintained an interest in plants, now having a magnificent bonsai collection of commercial scale. During some of the Christmas holidays we would travel overnight by train with his Mom and sister Su to stay with his relatives in Kroonstad or on his Uncle’s mealie farm named “Doornhoek” near Welkom. Amazingly as 15 year olds we even hitchhiked 300 km each way from Kroonstad to Kimberley to stay with another of John’s cousins and to visit the famous ‘big hole’ at Kimberley. July 20^th 1969 also holds good memories when John and I sat on the steps outside my bedroom in the night looking at the moon in the vain hope of seeing a satellite land on or leave the moon during the first moon landing.  Walking to John’s house along Railway Road on hot summer afternoons was an eye opener. The fine grass clippings from the bowling greens above, which had been thrown over the red earth bank along the edge of the road, would start smouldering and smoking without any human assistance. It was only years later that I heard the expression ‘spontaneous combustion’ where the sun’s heat alone triggered the burning. That section of bank was the same place where I dug out small clusters of muscovite mica, i.e. a transparent flaky mineral used for insulation purposes.

Macoyas, i.e. wild mushrooms, would pop up magically under the thorn trees in the nature strip below our garden, during and after thunderstorms. These mushrooms, to the size of saucers, would come out of nowhere in an hour or so. There would always be a mad rush to be the first to get to the mushrooms as all the locals would also be on the look out. Anyway the sliced pieces fried in butter generated a smell like steak and a delicious taste.

In 1966 I planted our Christmas tree (Norfolk Pine) that had become too big for our house. On my last visit to Twini in 2002 the tree soared far above the other trees as shown in my earlier photograph. This tree would have been an easy location marker for my place in the event that the house and surrounds had not been demolished.  Our Christmas tree would have reached the height of the five large Norfolk Pines that were located in Highbury Road, past the intersection with John Coke Road. Neil from Highbury Road reminded me of the lovely blue-headed lizards which frequented those trees.

Some creatures in our garden included birds, bats, snakes, moles, shrews, chameleons, frogs, giant snails, shongalolos (long black millipedes), click beetles, cicadas and the unwelcome termites.

We had a vast array of birds in our garden and around the village. Paradise fly-catchers, barbets, sunbirds, weavers, yellow-eyed canaries, drongos, woodpeckers, Narina Trogons and the list goes on. Because we had bird cages all the locals would bring injured or orphaned birds for us to look after. One orphan was a baby African Hoopoe that I fed until it was able to walk. I then had the task of working out how to teach it to feed, knowing that these birds would walk along the ground and probe their long beaks into the soil to catch worms. Anyway I got it to follow me, with the bird walking on the ground and me pushing my index finger into the sand. Much to my excitement I found that the Hoopoe copied me and in no time was able to distinguish whether there were one or two worms in the hole, going back for a second grab when appropriate. The Hoopoe stayed in my room and would fly in and out through the window for about two weeks before it decided that it was time to go permanently.

Piet our pied crow was another example of an injured bird brought to our house. He was found with a broken wing on the side of a road somewhere, so my dad made a lovely cage out of a large cable drum placed about 5 foot off the ground on a steel pole. Some of the outer cylinder planks made a door, other outer planks were removed and replaced with bird wire with some of the inner cylinder planks removed for a night time sleeping place. Piet stayed with us from 1962 to 1975 in Twini then moved with us until 1978 in Toti before some other good person took him off our hands when we moved again. The cable drums in various forms also came in very handy for other uses. Some of the cable drums had metal internal cylinders rather than wood slats. Anyway my Dad made a great six foot diameter garden table under one of the avocado trees by removing the outer perimeter wood slats and one of the wooden ‘wheels’ and then burying the metal inner cylinder vertically into the ground with the remaining wooden ‘wheel’ as the table top.

Catching birds was a regular pastime, whether it was by walk-in traps with pull strings or caller traps, using bird lime (a sticky bubble gum-like substance made from mistletoe berries) or even spraying with a hosepipe, usually for escaped budgies. Green twinspots, lavender finches and swee waxbills were the main interest although rooibekkies and others were trapped as far away as in the sugar cane fields. The birds were either swapped or sold to blokes that came from as far away as Jo’burg.

Oppenheimer Road and nature strip near the entry to the station, 2002

Twini was alive with snakes. Mr. Blewett, who was factory manager from 1922 to 1928 and is mentioned in the 100 year South Coast Sun article, stated “since I first worked at Umbogintwini I have tramped many miles in all parts of Africa, but no other place I know has had anything like as many snakes as that area on which the factory was built”. The same applied in my time with red-lipped heralds and house snakes being the most common, but green and black mambas, boomslangs, night adders, egg eaters, sand snakes, Natal black snakes, cobras and others being everywhere. Our neighbour Ken P. got me started with catching snakes. On one occasion Ken came over to our place with a black snake around his neck like a necklace, which we kids naturally also took turns at doing. It was only after Ken went to the snake park on Durban Beach that Mr Fitzsimons let him know that his ‘pet’ was a Natal black snake and apparently one of the most poisonous snakes in the province. The water meters in the road were the best place for catching snakes as the finger hole permitted the snakes to enter the buried pit box and either catch frogs or to rest for the day or night. On one occasion Mr Wise, from 20 (subsequently 26) Highbury Road, sent his garden boy up to our place for me to come and help with a snake that they had found in their large paper bag with chicken food. For the one and only time in all my snake catching time, my Dad instinctively decided to also go down (with our trusty Gecado 27 air rifle) to see what was going on. The bag had been placed in the middle of the lawn and the scrunched up top had partially opened. Nothing could be seen until my Dad approached the bag, and when about 10 feet away, the flared head of a Rinkals cobra came momentarily out of the top of the bag and spat venom across my Dad’s right cheek  –  the snake having aimed purely on the basis of vibrations from his feet moving across the ground towards the bag. Needless to say that bag was peppered with lead pellets from a distance and the dead 4 foot cobra was eventually retrieved. The big issue here is that my Dad and I could have been permanently blinded in one or both eyes due to the toxicity of the venom.

Three types of bats were seen. The most common were the small insect-eating bats which would sleep in the newest vertical cylindrical banana leaves during the day. We would catch them by placing a clean jam jar over the opening at the top of the new banana leaf then squeeze the bottom of the leaf progressively upwards until the bat ended up in the bottle. We were always extremely careful not to get bitten as we had been warned that they could carry rabies. A large white-winged bat variety was often found in our large avo trees. These solitary bats would constantly move around the tree trunk to hide from you. On one occasion we had a bunch of bananas ripening on the verandah which when ‘approached’ on the inside of the door window would find a very large fruit bat (similar to the flying foxes in Australia) hanging on the bananas and baring its teeth at us. Needless to say bananas were never placed there again.

Looking south along Highbury Road from near the corner with John Cope Road, 2002

Moles with their soil mounds were everywhere. These near blind, rat-like creatures had a shiny silver grey coat. Some people had an intense dislike for the moles as their mounds spoiled the look of the lawns. Moles were easily caught simply by staying dead still until they started pumping up the soil and then quickly digging below the mound with a spade. The only problem was that the underground tunnels contained families of moles so catching them one at a time was a hopeless exercise.

The termites, or white ants as we called them, were quite large and would come flying out in their thousands in the evening after summer rains. Timber (non-treated in those days) left on the ground would seldom last more than a week or two. The termites would even get up off the ground into timber stockpiles, although I did notice that they made no impact on some heavy strong Australian jarrah that I recall being left overs of some railway sleepers. Anyway the veranda was usually covered in masses of large termite wings the night after these were shed. The termites did however provide a great source of food for many of our birds as well as for the small round milky skin toads that would pop out of the sandy soil in the night to have a feast.

A lot of interest was generated in 1930 when Huberto the female hippo moved along the Natal coast from the St Lucia estuary in Zulu Land to end up in East London in March 1931 where unfortunately she was shot dead.  Her stuffed body is in the museum at King Williams Town.

One of my early memories included walking down the railway line towards Pingo with my Dad and seeing a purple crested loerie with wide open purple wings and emerald green body gliding below and away from us into the nearby trees  –  what a beautiful sight. We then took a short cut through the tropical bush, from near the later Dickens Road bridge over the railway line, towards the “new village’ only to be confronted by a large eye-height bush buck i.e. Nkonka. Both sides stared at each other for what seemed to be a long time before the buck simply turned around and trotted away at an unconcerned pace further into the trees.

Reference: Railway Society of South Africa – Natal Branch

Walking along the railway lines towards Durban or Toti, e.g. to go to the bird sanctuary in Umdoni Road, was not uncommon in those days as the steam trains could be heard from miles away. Prior to electrification the trains running from Pingo to Twini had to negotiate the Twini Hill, the grades of which dramatically affected the speed. The following extract (approximately 1930s) from “My Story  –  A Family Saga” by Malcolm Stewart is worth quoting here as it also had relevance in my time. The article itself also gives a great insight into the early days of Warner Beach, Doonside and Toti.

“In the vicinity of Umbogintwini there was a long steep gradient which the locomotives of the time surmounted only with great difficulty, and at a veritable snail’s pace, in spite of the most valiant and strenuous efforts of the engine crew, and so, as a diversion from the tedium of the journey, young blades would hop off the train at the bottom and trot alongside, beating the train to the top where they would once again gleefully rejoin. This was quite contrary to regulations and was done in a spirit of tempting fate and retaliation, but nevertheless, they always took great pains not to reboard the train in the carriage in which the ticket examiner was working.

The lawbreaking pranksters possessed two great advantages however. One was the plumes of coal dust grit, spewn into the air, and the other was the thick black smoke billowing over the train, both of which were necessitated by the need of the engine crew to build up the required head of steam, but both of which also made ticket examiners, and guards, as well as the other passengers very averse to looking out open windows to identify culprits. In fact, one’s proximity to the Umbogintwini hill could be very accurately judged, from the crashing of train windows being raised by experienced travellers, keeping out the smoke and dust.”

Oppenheimer Road towards Twini station over rail pedestrian bridge, 2002

The article not only gives some idea of the conditions in the passenger steam trains but also relates to my time when heavily loaded sugar cane trains heading from Pingo to the Illovo sugar mill would chug up the hill. The trains were so slow that local lads would jump onto the moving wagons and strip off the sugar cane by throwing the sticks to the edge of the track until the guard at the end would go ballistic. The lads would then jump off the wagons to return later to pick up the cane sticks and have a great feast on the nature strip below our place. It was not unusual for heavily loaded goods trains to also leave half of their load on the Pingo flats and then return to pick it up after leaving the first half at Twini after negotiating the hill. Needless to say all the shenanigans came to an end when the rail was electrified. The passenger service was very well patronised in my time. When the Royal Show was on in Pietermaritzburg, Standard 5 kids from Twini Primary would even catch a regular service at about 6.30 AM before connecting with the special train to get to Maritzburg around 10 AM, before doing the return trip starting around 2 PM. Rabbit pelts, fairy floss and toffee apples were always popular buys at the show.

The Railway Society of South Africa (RSSA) Natal Branch have graciously permitted the use of the photographs, taken by past members, shown in the website. They have a very impressive website worth looking at, showing many photos of stations along the south coast line. Many photos of Merebank, Reunion, Toti, Warner Beach etc are included, which I feel sure will bring back many memories.

Reference: Railway Society of South Africa, Natal Branch

My family also have a long association with the railways with my father’s grandfathers on both sides having worked for the Natal Government Railway. The May 6^th 1951 Sunday Tribune article below covers my great-grandfather and great-grandmother Hume’s story. You will see that major floods and the Illovo bridge figure prominently.

Reference: Railway Society of South Africa, Natal Branch

Reference: Railway Society of South Africa, Natal Branch

Walking with my parents from home to Twini beach, not more than half an hour, was also one of the earliest memories. A narrow dirt track zigzagged down the steep slope through the coastal silverleaf trees down to the beach about 250 feet (80m) below, the start of the track being at the sharp corner in Ocean View Road, nearby which in later years also became the launch pad for hang gliders. This was a popular beach for the locals until the 60s, particularly at low tide when about 1 mile length of beach rock was exposed for a distance of up to 20 yards (18m) off the sand line. A deep pool had also been blown out by Kynochs during the early 1900s to provide a swimming pool for the village people. Many small natural pools in the rocks were like mini aquariums that provided refuge for dogfish and other species as well as live cowries, sea urchins and even small octopus. The rock edge was also a perfect spot for fishing at low tide. Scratching around in the sand and gravel in the small tidal pools frequently produced coins and on one occasion even a nice gold ring. Going down the track to the beach was however fraught with some danger including on one occasion when a night adder lay in a rutted-out section of the track which had to be quickly bypassed, as well as when a large green mamba, at eye level in the silverleaf trees just off the seaside edge of the track, on another occasion had to be got past. My Mom gave up walking to the beach after a while because of the steep walk back and because of her fear of snakes. I have many other good memories of that beach including catching many karanteen (good eating, with fried battered roe the best) and even following a lost small penguin along the wave line heading towards Durban. The penguin was many hundreds of kilometres from its normal range toward the Cape. Large deep turtle nest holes were also not an uncommon sight in the elevated parts of the beach. Athol. M. from the “new village” caught a massive shad off Twini beach one day.  He was so proud of it he showed it off to all and sundry when walking back home via Highbury Road.

Reference:  South Coast Sun, 3 July 2008

Mr Oppenheimer, Harry as he liked to be known, officiated at the opening of the Jubilee Hall in 1958 which I attended with my Dad. As a kid I didn’t realize how important a figure he was in the world as Anglo American for which the AE & CI factory at Twini was a subsidiary, and De Beers were intimately tied up with his family. In simple terms the main gold and diamond supply of the world was tied up with his family. The main excitement for me however was the same night at the sports field when an epic fireworks display was put on. This included metal frameworks constructed such that a goose would walk along, lay an egg and the egg would hatch with the baby following its mother until the light frame fireworks ran out. In another scene two battleships fired at each other until one of the ships caught fire at the end of the scene.

The Jubilee Hall was more of the social centre of the village than the clubhouse. The Jubilee Hall replaced a small wooden building on stumps that was located behind the war memorial. Susan Baker, from across the road, would taken me at about 4 years of age to attend Sunday School there. The Jubilee Hall had the entrance with outside facing ticket office and opposite steps up to the projection room fronting Oppenheimer Road with glass French type doors for opening fronting the full length of the western side verandah. A small room off the verandah was the original library before it moved to the old house past the tennis courts and later swimming pool. The stage and undercroft storage was located at the far southern end. The Dam Busters of WWII bouncing bomb fame and Operation Noah are two of many movies held at the hall which I can still clearly remember today. Operation Noah came about after the construction of Lake Kariba, the largest man-made lake in the world at the time, on the border between Southern and Northern Rhodesia i.e. Zimbabwe and Zambia. The filling of the lake resulted in a huge number of wildlife being rescued and relocated. The hall was also used for multiple other purposes including Womens Institute meetings, flower shows, company Christmas parties for the employees’ kids, badminton, as well as being leased out for other functions including discos, Twini Primary School prizegivings and weddings. At one Christmas party we even had a live local band, called ‘Peter and the Dolphins’ as I recall, keeping us entertained with the “Four Jacks and a Jill” entertaining patrons on another occasion. I became a regular badminton player, with many others including Johann from down the road with his incredible backhand smash and Mr Ron Sparkes training the juniors and managing the seniors. Tricia and I also had our wedding reception at the hall with all catering organised by the Womens Institute with the always energetic Mrs Flora Rice at the helm. Jubilee Hall was also a major stop for the school bus to and from Kingsway High School. Joy from Highbury Road reminded me of how they would run down the road to get milk from the milkman who parked his cart outside the Jubilee Hall.

Reference : Amanzimtoti Lions Club Collection

The following extract in ‘A History of Amanzimtoti’ is from the 27 October 1966 edition of the Tom Tom: “The Umbogintwini Dramatic Society is presenting ‘Something to Hide’ by Leslie Sands, produced by Bertha McSkimming in the Jubilee Hall Umbogintwini on November 17, 18 and 19. The cast includes Polly Summerville, Robert McMillan, Bob Schuter, Elinor Railton, Enid Hedgcock, Jennifer Schuter and Basil Hedgcock.” Separate articles on the same page discuss the Umbogintwini and District Caledonian Society meeting, also that Mrs Strangman of Umbogintwini won a portable radio in the Kingsway Old Pupils Club cricket meeting and that S. Bjorseth of Umbogintwini was a M.O.T.H. Cinema prize winner.

Reference : Amanzimtoti Lions Club Collection & Umbogintwini Club Memories Facebook Group

1915 – 1918 Hurling team
Reference : Hilary Murphy and Facebook

The war memorial was located adjacent to the south west corner of Oppenheimer and Highbury Roads i.e. across the road from the Jubilee Hall. I remember watching at least two of the memorial gatherings held annually at the monument. It is shameful that the memories of those who were killed in war have been lost by the removal of the monument, which took up so little space. Many thanks to my brother Mark and to Russel Andraos who supplied the following pictures from the M.O.T.H. collection. I have also sketched up a scaled version of the full monument. Lest we forget.

Reference: M.O.T.H collection

The following updated information was supplied by Moth Old Bill Piet Fourie:

“The cenotaph was moved to our MOTH premises (Mills Bomb Shellhole), 1 Ellcock Road, Warner Beach in late 2011 when the land on which it was originally situated, was sold for development. The plinth was no longer being cared for, had become overgrown and continually desecrated. After lengthy negotiations with the new land owners, it was eventually relocated and it now stands proud at the entrance to the Shellhole honouring those men of AECI that died in the two World Wars.”

Reference: Toti-ites – 60 and 70’s Facebook Club

Reference: Rob Willis Collection

Reference: From technical paper by L.M. Juckes titled “A bone-bearing beachrock at Umbogintwini Natal”.
The picture is a view of the lagoon and beach bar as viewed from “Windy Corner” to Pingo Beach.

The Twini River lagoon and beach also holds many memories. This is another feature which has been wiped out of history due to the redirection of the river out to sea via a canal on the Pingo side –  the aerial photo indicates that this is now just an elongated dry patch. In my time this was a long narrow brackish lagoon where the river water built up to a point where the beach bar was breached and the river flowed into a small ocean bay between submerged rock shelves. The wave action then rebuilt the beach bar, with the back lagoon being a good spot for fishing. Access to the beach was originally via a steep narrow walkway along the southern side before an access track was constructed for vehicle access from the car park to the beach. Mullet, tiger fish, gobies and other small fish could always be caught. The main interest however was the rock salmon and other larger fish. On one occasion my friend Terry from the ‘New Village’ and I rode down to the lagoon on our bikes with rods. Hudd Road and Linscott Road was our usual route to Golf Course Road and then to the lagoon. Terry caught a 6 pound rock salmon which gave a huge fight. That however turned out to be the easy part, taking the fish back home with our old three speed bikes, rods and tackle, especially up the steep part of Linscott Road, was the difficult part. On another occasion my Dad caught a large queenfish using one of the lures that he made. On another occasion we also had three Kens in our fishing trip to the lagoon, so for communications purposes the eldest our neighbour Ken P. was called Kenneth, Ken R who lived next to the St Johns Church was called Ken and I being the youngest was called Kenny. The lagoon even had a jetty off the golf course level which gave better access to the deeper water for fishing. The aerial image indicates that the relict structure still exists, isolated in the middle of dry land. On another night time fishing trip with my Dad and Uncle Ted we had a fantastic view of the Skylab satellite which moved at relatively slow speed and because of its low proximity to earth was like a huge yellow ball. On yet another trip I found a bleached whale skeleton on the Pingo side of the lagoon. I ended up carrying one of the large vertebrae back home with some difficulty, for our feature garden next to the old toilet which included the ancient pottery and other interesting artifacts which had been collected.

Reference: From technical paper by L.M. Juckes titled “A bone-bearing beachrock at Umbogintwini Natal”.
The picture shows that all of the beach bar was removed in a major storm in 1966 which exposed bone fossils and archaeology artifacts.

The lagoon beach itself was a very popular place for young surfers and other ‘beach bums’ from Twini and Athlone Park. I can clearly remember Richard, Gavin, Andre, Bernard, Allan, two Marks, Steven and at least ten others near the beach rock face on many occasions. Coincidentally a number of those characters now live on Brisbane’s Sunshine Coast and on Bribie Island. Fishing for green shad with my Dad in the bay was also a big thing in winter. We would get to the bay before daybreak, bait up and start fishing, usually successfully. The only problem was that it was so cold that my fingers became numb and shrivelled. The only way to provide relief was to quickly bait up and cast out by standing in the waves which were quite warm compared with the beach. My brother Mark would also regularly catch crayfish off the rock shelf. It’s also a special place to my family as my Dad’s ashes were also spread beyond the bay in 1997.

Reference: Frances Clayton collection
Picture showing the sandstone rock face, Surfview units, Benvicks house in Radar Crescent, the golf course club house, the lagoon behind the beach bar, and the partially dismantled Dakota.

This is the same beach where the Dakota aeroplane ditched in the sea on 28 December 1973 after running out of fuel a short distance from the airport, on a trip back from a Lesotho casino. I was doing uni student work at the bottle store when the Dakota came in so low that we all ran outside to see what was happening and realising that the plane was in trouble, virtually gliding on its last breath to land in the breakers just outside the bay at Twini lagoon. Those that died jumped out of the plane which saved most of the remaining passengers and crew when it simply floated to the shore. The beach appears to have become informally known by some as Dakota Beach because of that incident.

Reference: Peter Raath Collection
Circa 1960 photo from Windy Corner to Pingo showing the Twini River, Pingo golf course and bridges. 

Roderick reminded me of adventures along the Twini River from the area of the African sports field where huge guavas could be picked. Areas of rapidly deposited sand resulted in quicksand situations where you found yourself instantly thigh high into the very loose sand  –  very frightening! There were also two old sand-filled circular brick-lined well points in that part of the river. There was however about two foot of internal water with overhanging grass which was great for catching small fish, eels and shrimps which hid in the grass edge. The grass also provided good nesting spots for wagtails, as well as the occasional water snake which would give you a huge fright when they darted out of the grass. Bilharzia was potentially always an issue, however I only heard of one case where children contracted the disease from playing in a fresh stockpile of sand obtained from the river.

The village was very well endowed with the adjoining bowls green, tennis courts, squash courts, swimming pool and 9 hole golf course with a club house and caddy facilities, in addition to the main sports field, with its concrete cricket pitch, a short distance away.

Reference: Harry Mulholland Collection
Karen Muir opens the swimming pool in 1969

Karen Muir the Springbok child prodigy swimmer, who held fifteen world records at the time, opened the swimming pool. Us kids, although of similar age to Karen, climbed onto the tennis court perimeter fence to get a better view of her swim. Few swimming pools existed in those days. The public sea pool at Inyoni Rocks at Toti and a private swimming pool at the Anderton’s house in Radar Crescent Athlone Park were the main locations for swimming before the Twini pool opened. In the summer months Mrs Anderton, would invite her lady friends around the pool for one afternoon per week. All the kids from far and wide would also be welcome to go swimming at the same time, with the ladies keeping a keen eye out for any silly activities.  Bryan H. and Kathleen T. reminded me that the Mulhollands also welcomed locals to their swimming pool before Mrs Anderton did.

Reference: Harry Mulholland Collection
1969 opening of the swimming pool showing Mack Mulholland, Karen Muir and Harry Mulholland

The golf course, originally cleared to grow cotton, was always kept in immaculate condition. It was a good short cut when walking to Toti provided you kept an eye out for whizzing golf balls.  I vaguely recall hearing that Gary Player, one of the greatest golfers of all time, played on the course. The well-known Indian player Sewsunker Sewgolum, known as “Papwa” also won a major title at the course. The other nearest golf course at Twini lagoon was usually referred to as the Isipingo Golf Club although officially named the Amanzimtoti Golf Club.

Reference: Umbogintwini Club Memories Facebook Group
1995 aerial view to Toti showing the Jubilee Hall, tennis courts, club house and Twini golf course

The sports field also holds good memories where the annual factory sports was held. In addition to the usual track events, there were traditional events such as the greasy pole, i.e. a 20 foot or so timber telephone pole that had been greased up with a coconut hanging at the top. The first man to the top to retrieve the coconut received a prize. The guys tried all sorts of tactics to reduce the effects of the grease such as removing their shirts to use as rolled up grease catchers on the way up. A bloke by the name of Bevis was unbelievable as he usually won the competition. Having sack fights on a horizontal pole on a timber frame and coconut shies were other events. The announcer for the day was usually Mr Bob Hann, the chemist at the hospital across the road in real life. At one of the annual sports days we were given an amazing show with about 30 Zulu men dressed up in full black and white cattle skin battle regalia. A small bloke was in the front stirring up the ‘warriors’ who would bang their shields with sticks in unison as well as lift each bare foot and bang it again in unison with such force that the ground vibrated. I believe that some of the Zulu ‘warriors’ were also in a music group (possibly Ladysmith Black Mambazo) as my Dad mentioned that one of the plant workers had got back from a performance for the Queen in London.

Reference: Rodney Buchan Collection

Informal soccer and cricket was also played on the field when word got around that a game was on.  Formal soccer was also played at the field by the Twini Park Football Club before the senior and junior teams moved to the Dickens Road field. Jimmy was the goalkeeper and manager of the senior team as I recall with others including Woody, Ronnie, Ian and others. The juniors or ‘lighties’ were later very successfully trained Mr Crawford (after his family arrived from Zambia) with Roy, Mark and others playing to quite a high standard. Those were the days when soccer supporters were fanatically split down the middle between Durban City and Durban United. An undated reference in “A History of Amanzimtoti” also states that S. Inggs of Twini School set a new record of 12.7 seconds for the under 12 boys 100 yards race at the interschools at the sports field. The sports field was a good spot to fly kites in kite season.

Twini Primary School also brings back a lot of memories. When I started at Umbogintwini Government School (as it was known) in 1959 Mr Stander was Headmaster.  He must have been helping out as beloved “Pop” Fearon was Headmaster for the rest of my time until the end of 1965. Mr Deighton was then the headmaster after my time. The school initially went to standard 6 (grade 8) before changing to standard 5 (grade 7).  Before South Africa became a republic on 31 May 1961, traditional English activities such as maypole dancing were enjoyed at the school. In those early days we were even supplied with milk by the school which was even delivered by a helicopter on one occasion much to the absolute amazement of all. The main playing field, on the south side and below of these original school buildings, had only been excavated around 1960. The concrete footpath, to the footbridge over the N2 at the southern end of the school field, provided a great spot for billy cart runs and skateboarding. A lovely amphitheatre had also been made in a clearing in the thick tropical bush across the road from the main entry to the school. A couch grass area sloped down to the near level stage with freshly cut tree branches installed vertically to form a ‘curtain’ from behind which we kids would make our entry onto the stage. Shows were usually put on at night with our parents sitting on the grass slope and some lights strung up around the place to provide sufficient light for all concerned. Singing classes in about Standard 4 included Molly Malone (alive alive oh, singing cockles and mussels), It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Loch Lomond (you take the high road and I’ll take the low road), Waltzing Matilda etc.

Reference: Peter Raath Collection
Circa 1960 photo showing young Peter Raath. Does anybody recognise the other adults in the picture?

The boys would play soccer or marbles and do other things before school and in the morning and the main lunch time breaks. These activities were on the top field between the school buildings and the tennis court, cricket pitch and groundsman’s residence. I and many others used to run or ride our bikes to and from home during the main lunch break. During one of our soccer games before school the school bully by the nickname of “Fatty” would get a long piece of rope and with one of his henchmen at the other end would pull the rope tight and run across the field to mow down as many as possible. On another occasion “Fatty” brought a Gecado 23 air gun to school and again, during a pre-school soccer game, used green lantana berries as ammunition to fire at whoever was within range. I believe “Fatty” subsequently mysteriously left the school! When we found out that someone had the words to “Ag Pleez Daddy” we all got to school early and gathered in the assembly covered area to copy down the words.

Reference: South Coast Sun, 3 July 2008 Mr Z. de Beer Stander

Reference: Kathleen Tubb Collection Mr A.C. “Pop” Fearon

Mrs Gardiner, Miss Gibson, Miss Pascoe and Miss Cooke were some of my teachers. Miss Cooke, who was my Standard 5 teacher and close to retirement, was an inspiration when telling us about her travels in Europe, all by mail ship in those days. I very clearly remember Miss Cooke taking our class down to the sports field on 11 November 1965 when we only had a few weeks left in junior school. An SAA Boeing 727 flew over on its final approaches to Louis Both airport when Miss Cooke told us that Ian Smith had declared UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) for Rhodesia. Miss Cooke went on to explain what it meant and also to provide advice for our futures when we entered the big pond of high school.  Miss Cooke, who started her teaching career at Pingo Primary before retiring there and going to Europe, came out of retirement to again teach but this time at Twini Primary.

On the sports field it was usually a tussle between Robin from Chamberlain Road, Roderick from Athlone Park and me for the high jump title, also between Peter and Ian from Athlone Park and me for the 100 yards race.

On one occasion with my desk next to the south facing window in Standard 5, I spotted a sand snake coming along the edge of the block. I immediately jumped out the window to catch the snake much to the horror of Miss Cooke and a lot of the pupils. That otherwise made me so popular that classmate Martin, who lived down the road from me, was so impressed that he even gave me a lift home for lunch on his coveted new three speed bike. Martin was amazingly knowledgeable for our age group, regularly giving me updates on how Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) was doing when fighting Sonny Liston, as well as the development progress of the Concorde airliner and TSR2 spy plane and much more. Anyway good cricket games were also had at Martin’s place with his brother John and other neighbours including Richard.

‘Yokkie’ another school friend from Reservoir Rise in Athlone Park invited me to his place one afternoon to see his Dad’s Chinchillas, i.e. nocturnal rabbit-like animals that were in big demand for their pelts. After that we went along the road to look out to sea to see the Windsor Castle mail ship on its trip to Southampton via Cape Town. That lovely ship was not far offshore after leaving Durban on Thursdays for its run every two weeks to England.  There are some great pictures, and even a You-Tube clip, of this ship online.

Twini school received a number of international pupils during my time. They came from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Zambia, Mauritius, England and Holland. One of the girls in our Standard 5 class was Mary, whose family I recall had arrived from Kenya following the Mau Mau crisis. Her friends included Ann and one of the Karens in our class who were also new arrivals at the school.

The well known singer and writer Penelope Jane Dunlop (AKA PJ Powers) states in her book “Here I am” that she went to Twini school before she became a singer. She mentions having lived at 33 Churchill Road Umbogintwini (actually Athlone Park) and winning Eisteddfod and tap and modern dancing competitions at the school.  I did not achieve any dizzying heights at primary school but did manage to get the woodwork prize in standard 5 at the school prizegiving at the Jubilee Hall. Penny S. and Corinne H. were the bright sparks in my Standard 5 class. My Twini Primary motto “Aim High”, my Kingsway High motto “Ut Prosim” (that I may serve) and my air force motto “Per Aspera ad Astra” (through hardship to the stars) have however kept me on the straight and narrow!

Reference: Sun International South Africa / Flickr

We had three Miss South Africas from our area. Disa Duivestein from Athlone Park was the winner in the 1967 competition. I am not sure whether Disa went to Twini School however her brother went to the school in my time. Mr Duivestein was also well known in the area for his attempts, with other local businessmen, to locate a treasure ship off the Wild Coast in Pondoland where gold coins had been found along the coastline. I can’t recall which ship it was, possibly the 1554 Portuguese Sao Bento or 1782 British Grosvenor.

Click onto this link for a video of the first Highland Gathering in 1963 as supplied by Rodney Buchan.  Note the Whitings and Mitchells houses, the old pedestrian bridge over the N2, and the school buildings etc.

The Highland Gathering was a highlight of the year for me. The first gathering was held at Twini Primary School on 15 June 1963 as part of the fund-raising for the junior school. I remember Mr Steyn or possibly Mr Raath practicising as the lone piper from Athlone Park before the main event. Dr and Mrs Dalziel and Mr and Mrs Leesam were also heavily involved with the event. The gathering turned out to be a huge success with tombolas, girls competing with traditional dancing over crossed swords and the bagpipe bands being judged throughout the day. The end of the gathering culminated with the mass band marching and playing ‘Scotland the Brave’ and other music that reverberated through the whole district. There were so many bands in the mass pipe event that they could barely do any marching across the sports field before having to turn back on themselves. The Queen’s Piper even came out from England to judge the bands in about 1968. The event was subsequently moved to Hutchinson Park in Toti, possibly for extra space. That venue however failed to capture the atmosphere of the Twini site. In recent years there apparently have been up to 1,000 bandsmen and women competing, so the success story rolls on.

Reference: Michael (Swany) Swanepoel collection

Reference: A Brisbane Collector’s SAAF Harvard, Ken Grubb collection

The regular fly-pasts of the coastal surveillance  Sunderland flying boats, based at Congella, was also one of my early recollections. The Sunderlands were replaced by the Avro Shackletons which were a variation of the famous Avro Lancasters of WWII. The Harvards, Shackletons, Vampires, Sabres, Canberras, Mirages, Impalas (aeromachies), Buccaneers, Hercules, Transals, Allouette and Puma and Superfrelon helicopters of the air force as well as all the airways Constellations, Skymasters, Viscounts, Comets, Boeing 707s, 727s and 737s and other commercial planes would fly at fairly low altitude over our house to or from the now abandoned Louis Botha airport. Unfortunately I missed the Concorde’s test flight to Louis Botha Airport in the early 1970s. Watching the WWII pilot veterans keeping up their training with the Harvards on Saturdays was a scene to behold. The Harvards from No. 5 Squadron would do loop de loops, do vertical stalls and other antics. On one occasion a well known major even flew south to north along Highbury Road just above the power lines waving his aircraft’s wings along the way where his fishing mates lived!  On another occasion a flight of large four-engine propeller US Airforce planes (B50s ?) with their orange banding accompanying an off-shore aircraft carrier fleet came in so low that everything shook and shuddered as they passed. I was in the flower garden helping my dad with a new agapanthus bed around 1963 when the first flight of dart-shaped Mirage fighters to Durban flew over in a magical ‘V’ formation. The mirages, which required rear parachutes to land, became notorious for breaking the sound barrier with the sonic booms shattering windows up and down the coast.

Reference: “A history of Amanzimtoti”
Highland gathering, Hutchinson Park, 1973

Walks and outdoor activities towards Toti to the south were mainly via the railway tracks or along the golf course. The railway track route would take us along the edge of a large open channel, originally for effluent from the factory, and past the ‘forest’ as we named it, which I believe is now part of the Umbogavango nature area. Grey duiker (impiti), bushbuck, mongooses, monkeys and the occasional genet cat were observed. Animals jumping into the long grass-lined effluent drain were often heard but never seen. These were perhaps water mongooses or otters which were known in the area and definitely not legavaans or monitor lizards, which grew to at least 6 foot long, and had a totally different sound when jumping into water. Fortunately we never came across the very dangerous bush pigs that became a serious nuisance on some of the smallholdings in the Toti area in the 1970s. Occasional leopard sightings were mentioned by others in the dense bush areas and around the cliff lines along the Twini and Umkomaas Rivers where dassies (hyrax) were common at the cliff locations. There was great excitement when a pair of crested eagles first set up nest in the ‘forest’ which included plantation pine trees. Those birds subsequently became a regular sight.

Reference: Umbogintwini Club Memories Facebook Group
1995 aerial view of the Jubilee Hall, tennis courts, bowling greens, club house, squash courts, and railway houses

The open channel was left in place with the effluent then going in underground pipes to outlet at the end of a high gantry near Toti Beach, the effluent simply pouring from high above into the sea at the low water mark. The underground pipes were subsequently extended to about 1.5 km along the sea bed and out to sea. The construction of the undersea outfall was a huge attraction with many people visiting the beach to see progress with the amphibious ‘duck’ vehicles riding along the beach and then going straight into the waves like boats and out to sea were the main attraction. The old beachside gantry was also demolished as part of the works, so if you didn’t know the current name Pipeline Beach you would be totally unaware of what  passes under you and out to sea. In my time this was a popular spot for daytime fishing for blue shad in winter, also daga salmon (mulloway/jewfish) in the night. The daga salmon that were caught were regularly 20 – 40 lbs and their large ivory-like balance stones (otoliths) were regularly made into earrings by my Dad at the request of his fishing friends for their wives. Massive sardine runs in winter would also beach around the pipeline, with the accompanying frenetic activity with people running into the water to scoop up the sardines, the diving gannets and other birds going crazy, gluttonous sharks, so full with sardines, would often simply roll up and down the beach in the waves. There were frequent stories of night time fishermen at the pipeline hearing the drumming sound of diesel engines out to sea but relatively close to the beach. These were firmly believed to be Russian submarines getting up to nefarious activities. This was also a good beach to use my metal detector that I bought from the U.S. in 1969.

My brother Mark reminded me of the sinking of the coastal trader “Griqualand” off the pipeline beach on 14 November 1970. The ship caught fire and was sunk by shelling by the Royal Navy HMS Dido as it was a danger to shipping. Our family, on hearing the gunfire, travelled to Ocean View Road to watch the sinking.  The wreck has since apparently become a good place for spear fishing for daga salmon. I don’t recall any flotsam from the wreck getting to the nearby beaches, totally different from when the Aimee Lykes ran aground on Aliwal Shoal on 26 October 1963. The 3000 tons of cargo was then jettisoned only to be found for miles along the local beaches for many weeks afterwards. The Aimee Lykes was eventually dragged off the rocky shoal with great difficulty and spent 6 months in repair in Durban before returning to the U.S.

Reference: REUTERS/Rogan Ward
Workers install the 2Africa undersea cable at Pipeline Beach, February 7, 2023.

Interestingly I note that a major international internet cable now installed around the African coast has a landfall connection at the Pipeline Beach. The WIOCC planning report by Acer gives some really good information on all potential impacts that they need to consider.

The book tilted “A History of Amanzimtoti” by M.J. Meitiner provides a lot of short stories, information, newspaper cuttings and photographs which also covers surrounding suburbs including Twini.

St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Highbury Road and St John’s Anglican Church in Oppenheimer Road were located within the village boundaries, whereas the Presbyterian Church is located just outside the village boundary in Prince Street and the Methodist Church is located further away in Athlone Park.

Reference: Mike Mulholland Collection
St Patrick’s Catholic Church seen boarded up, as being inspected by Mack Mulholland on 29 July 2012.

Our family are not particularly religious, or political for that matter, however as kids we went to the Methodist Church for a short while. Any religious inclinations that we may have had were dashed due to an English fellow by the name of Reverend Polly who had very little to say other than giving us endless ear bashings on South African politics. My brother Clive and I ended up avoiding Sunday school by hiding in the garden when Mr Higo arrived on Sunday mornings whilst rounding up the local kids for church.

I can’t remember much about St John’s Church, however the well-attended St Patrick’s Catholic Church, a short distance from our place in Highbury Road, brings back plenty of memories of friends and their parents walking past our place around 6.30 A.M. on Sunday mornings heading to church. Mrs Kelly in her South Coast Sun article of 2 October 2017 (click onto https://southcoastsun.co.za/106471/amanzimtoti-catholics-look-back-100-years-since-churchs-establishment/ gives a good write-up on the 100 year commemoration of the church on 26 August 1917. Information on the graves in the cemetery can also be obtained by going to the eGGSA library site with the words ‘Umbogintwini St Patricks Church cemetery’ which includes headstone details in photos of the church.

Reference: Google Maps
Presbyterian Church

I recall the building of the Presbyterian Church, the history of which is covered by clicking onto http://www.totipresbyterian.co.za/history.html. The article not only gives information on AE&CI and the Twini club, Jubilee Hall etc, but also has some photos including of Mr Wheelock and Mr Sheares. Dr McLeod, of Twini hospital fame, and one of the main movers in establishing the church, died in Kenya in 1965. His funeral service, “probably the largest ever held there”, was held at the church and his name is also apparently on a foundation stone there.

Reference: Toti-ites 60s and 70s Facebook Club
Presbyterian Sunday School 1965

Reference: KZN Scouts

The scout hut was located along Rees Road near the original road gate separating Twini from Athlone Park. This was the place where the cubs and scouts got their training, also a location where fights between some of the boys were settled. Vim Hofland has put together a nice website with photos and names including Ian Derwent and others (click onto https://hofland.co.uk/Pages/autobiography/scouting.html) for more details including a picture of three Springbok Scouts i.e. himself, Stuart Boyd and David Gurr at the Jubilee Hall.

Reference: KZN Scouts

Across the road from the scout hut was a flat mainly bare red earth area with a bank that we all knew as “sandy bank”. Much fun was had there by myself, Dux, Millie, Leonard and others. Fun included climbing the silverleaf trees, eating monkey apples, collecting “money balls” i.e. pill-millipedes with hard brown shells that rolled up to sizes larger than a large marble, also getting Millie’s fox terrier to catch rats in the mown grass mounds.

Reference: Peter Raath collection
Circa 1958 ‘Carols by Campfire’ at the Scout Hut
Adults from left to right are Mrs Raath, Mr A.J. De Beer (deputy factory manager), Mr Sliedrecht, and Mr Jock (Pecker) Patterson.

Harry’s Shack was a local institution. It was located on the spur line platform, directly through the nature strip and across Oppenheimer Road below our place. This small square tin shed had all the essentials for the local kids when the got their pocket money, or people riding past on Oppenheimer Road or walking past to Twini railway station. “Cooldrinks” such as Coke and Pepsi, milk, bread, pies, cakes, sweets and bubble gum including Wicks and Chappies, could all be obtained from this small shop. A farthing (quarter penny) would buy one bubblegum.

Two Indian blokes did the sales whereas a retarded tall Indian fellow by the name of Gunda kept the surrounding, mainly gravel area, in immaculate shape simply by using a ‘broom’ only made from tree branches. Gunda exhibited some albinism and had slightly buck teeth, and always wore oversized longs that were strapped with string around his waist. He was always barefooted and a harmless chap who enjoyed talking to kids but was otherwise kept on a tight rein by his two bosses.

A large Chinese Elm tree was located close to the shack. The tree supported a population of European sparrows, otherwise know as “mossies”, as well as some Indian mynahs and doves. Occasional prolonged wet weather in winter would usually result in many of the birds dying and lying around the floor for Gunda to clean up.

The railways later built a fenced enclosure near the elm tree. Platelayers in their big trucks would pull up to get supplies or park under the tree in the afternoon, killing time until knockoff.

My brother Mark reminded me of the boxing matches that were also held there.

Anyway the shack was later condemned as a supposed health risk to meet new standards. This was just a pretext in my mind as I never heard of anyone getting sick from the supplied foodstuffs.

The hospital was operated by the company for the benefit of the employees and their families. Located on elevated land above the sports field, this relatively small set-up with at least three or four wards had Dr McLeod as the very popular resident doctor for most of my time, with Dr Bougas and Dr Groves taking over in later years. Dr Fraser and Dr Gordon from Scotland also preceded Dr McLeod.  Mr Bob Hann was the chemist for the dispensing of medicine with Sister or Matron Holder being in charge of the wards. The hospital provided a great service whether for general ailment assistance, medical procedures or childbirth.

Dr McLeod of Scottish origin called the children his ‘bairns’. Going to see the doctor usually started by being given some big pink calcium tablets which were sweets as far as we kids were concerned. As was the usual practice in those days Dr McLeod would also do house calls at all hours of the night if required.

A room at head office has greatfully been dedicated to the re-establishment of the museum by the Regional Manager.

The museum, arranged by helpers with long associations to Twini, includes pieces of furniture from the Staff House.  The dining table and chairs and other items for example were brought out from England by Mr Chamberlain.

Reference:  Virginia Sedge and Mike Mulholland collections

The intention is to permit public access subject to pre-arranged bookings.

Twini village provided a unique setting during my time; whether for the close proximity to the beach and most of the necessary facilities or for the high level of social interaction and other aspects described above.

The lifestyle, for a young boy in those days, was also many worlds away from the current sedentary digital lifestyle.

Paradise fly catcher by Ken Grubb, 30.12.1967

Progress must happen however it is a crying shame that the current development in Twini has totally obliterated all traces of the environmental and heritage value of the place.

Destruction of the village started in 2008, exactly 100 years after the first sod was turned at the factory.

My website provides some knowledge of a place that has almost been written out of history.

Finally my article may hopefully spur others on to record their knowledge and experiences of the Twini of old.

Thanks to Tricia, Gavin, the local Facebook club and others for all the help.

See all the great comments at the end of the website and add yours!

The following sections are recollections of people covering the “good old days” of the factory and village. These sections, again in no particular order, provide additional great insights on the way of life as it was then. Some of the names mentioned e.g. Murray, Kavanagh, Weller, Hewitt, Buchan, Roche, Lee, O’Brien, O’Neill, Johnson and Woolahan are surnames that I knew or were around in my time.

Read about the “new chum” who took on three large black mambas and survived or the bloke that scored 304 not out in a cricket match against the Transvaal.  Read about Father Byrne’s interviews with some of the Irish pioneers or read Dr Dodd’s notes on early staff members, three of which obtained Doctor of Science degrees for world-changing research.  This included Dr Dodds himself who set up the sugar experiment station at Mt Edgecombe in 1924.

 

Part 2

Scroll through or read sections that take your interest.

by W V Blewett

There are many factories belonging to ICI and its associated companies and some are much older than Umbogintwini, but there can surely be few that have had a more interesting history.  It was built over 50 years ago in a South African reserve and it was thought it would probably have a life of only a few years before the Rand Mines petered out.  I hope I shall be pardoned if I tell you something of its early story, not as a detached historian, but as one who was there.

The erection of the factory started in 1908 in what was then wild “bush” country about 15 miles from Durban on the south coast of Natal.  Kynoch Limited who had an explosives’ factory in Ireland had decided to compete for a share in the large market for nitroglycerine explosives (“dynamite”), a market which till then had been shared between Nobels, with a factory in the Transvaal quite close to the mines, and De Beers, whose factory was near Cape Town some 900 miles away.  This market was, of course, the gold fields of the Rand near Johannesburg, which had been discovered in 1885 and which were, after more than 20 years, still expanding their output!  It was estimated in 1908 that the mines would reach their maximum output in about 1912 to 1915, after which it would slowly decline.  What a different story it has turned out to be – a continuous and undreamed of quantity of gold still being produced there three-quarters of a century since the first gold was found.  I watched peak after peak of production being passed after 1908; and then came the discovery of rich gold fields in the Orange Free State; and again the discovery of extractable quantities of uranium in the gold ores and the old residues.  What the Fairy Godmother still has in store for the gold mining companies of South Africa I don’t know: has she kept her greatest surprise till last?

But in 1908 we were told that we must hurry on with the erection of the factory and make some profit quickly before the mines began to give out!  Umbogintwini was well-placed to compete.  The then separate colony Natal granted Kynoch Limited very attractive conditions and the great port of Durban was only 15 miles away, while the distance to the Rand was only half that from De Beers’ explosives’ factory at Somerset West.  The grant of land was about 1500 acres.  It was largely covered with trees or almost impenetrable scrub.  The village of the same name was later built on the ridge of land on the seaward side of the area; here, from the golf course which was laid out several years later there was a beautiful inland view of flat-topped hills and in the other direction of the Indian Ocean.

What a place for snakes!  Since I first worked at Umbogintwini I have tramped many miles in all parts of Africa, but no other place I know has had anything like as many snakes as that area on which our factory was built; but I’ll keep the snake stories till later.

The Zulu word “umbogot” means a large round pebble as used for grinding corn, etc., and Umbogintwini was called after the river of that name, the bed of which had lots of these pebbles in it.  “Umbogintwini” was thus “the place of the large round pebbles”.  Before the factory started there was only a “Halt” of that name of the South Coast Railway which passed through what afterwards became the village.

I was one of a small group of four “Works Chemists”.  My section was the acid factory making sulphuric acid from pyrites and nitric acid from nitrate of soda; but in the early days we did shift work in any part of the factory.  One of the first jobs was to learn enough of the lingua franca – a degraded form of simple Zulu known as “kitchen Kaffir” – to be able to give orders to the African workers who came from several of the surrounding native territories, Pondoland, Basutoland, Zululand, etc.  Kitchen Kaffir was spoken and is spoken though most of South Africa and in Central Africa – I found it very useful in Rhodesia when I was last there about 10 years ago.  (North of Central Africa the lingua franca is Swahili).  We had about 1000 African workers (a number increased to 3000 during World War I).  The Europeans were largely from Ireland – the others being a mixture of farmers, remittance men, sailors, alcoholics, pioneers, in fact a most interesting bunch of men but a bit difficult on Saturday nights sometimes.

Somebody once said that England was the country where druggists were called chemists, and sure enough the Africans seeing us Works Chemists working in the chemical laboratory were soon calling us “tagati” (witch doctor) and asking for “medicine” for their aches and pains.  They brought us snakes so that we could make medicine from their organs, and they looked to us to dress their acid burns and their cracked skulls after their Saturday night brawls.  At first we had no hospital, but later one was built and a doctor called every fortnight.  They must have been a healthy lot; in fact the acid burns were far and away the most troublesome infliction.  Raw Africans coming new to the factory had no idea that harmless looking sulphuric and nitric acids could destroy flesh in a few minutes, and these accidents were, I’m afraid, fairly common in those days, resulting in severe burns.

The factory started manufacturing in 1909 and most of us began to feel that we had settled in South Africa, and I am the only one of those Works Chemists who has left South Africa.  We came to think with John Buchan that it was “the finest country under the stars”.  That year we were asked to vote for or against the “Union” of the four British colonies that made up South Africa (German South West Africa was, of course, not included in those days) and were persuaded that if we had a Union the two white races, British and Dutch (Afrikaner) would become “one-stream”.  The Africans of course would remain, as always, hewers of wood and drawers of water.  In those days the “paternal” relationship between whites and blacks seemed a practical and permanent arrangement and was as acceptable to the African as it was to the European.  Hardly anyone foresaw either the bad effects that unplanned industrialisation would have or the detribalisation that would result.  As for nationalistic ideas among the Africans, they were thought to belong to the past!  Natal, it should be added, had already started to give a few Africans the opportunity to improve their status and if one reached a certain standard of education, character and citizenship, he could be placed on the same footing as a white man so far as legal and administrative restrictions were concerned.  This privilege, which I saw in the working, was granted to only a few Africans in Natal, but unfortunately (so I think) was withdrawn when the Union was formed.

Generals Botha and Smuts toured Natal to convince us that Union would be a good thing for everybody; and in fact Natal was so dependant on the Rand Mines that it would have had a very difficult time outside the Union.  As it was both Natal and Umbogintwini rapidly developed and all went well, except for a couple of serious explosions, until the First World War.

The first Sunday we young chemists spent in Natal we went out to the factory to get to know its environs and we walked along a disused road with a ditch on either side overgrown with tall reeds.  There was a noise in these reeds like a cow crushing through them and we stiffened and stopped.  Out of the reeds came the big, flat, brown head of a large python (boa constrictor) and we each took a flying leap across the opposite ditch and gave that spot a wide berth.  An adventure I had later was much more exciting.  I had been picnicking in the bush and had left my friends to pack up while I strolled towards and then across a little stream, using the rocks as stepping stones to cross to the far bank of the stream which was a low cliff covered with shrubs and grass.  As I approached it I was puzzled at seeing a lot of stones and earth rolling down the cliff all mixed up with s big, dark, writhing snake.  I called out “Here’s a snake” and my friends shouted back “Kill it”.  I had only a walking stick and I attacked the snake with this before I realised there were three large snakes apparently fighting in the mixture of earth and stones.  It was the mating season.  Two of the snakes, too occupied to notice me and no doubt wondering what had hit them, went off up the cliff on a few feet of tail each, and the third went into a bush at the base of the cliff.  I threw stones into the bush to make it show itself and it came out of the bush at the height of my shoulder.  The stick with which I had lashed at the snakes had snapped off, leaving about 18″ in my hand.  With this I hit the snake across the back of the neck; no doubt someone had told me this was the correct thing to do.  It was, and it killed the snake.  When my friends ran up they told me it was a black mamba and the Africans who appeared confirmed this.  The black mamba is the most feared of all African snakes as it is so big and poisonous.  (One had chased an officer on horseback in the Zulu war, bitten him on the thigh and killed him in a few minutes).  We skinned and measured the snake – it was 10 ft 6 ins.  “But you should have seen those that got away”.

I have never heard of any other “new-chum” innocent enough or fool enough to attack three large black mambas – but new-chums must be specially protected or have beginner’s luck.  I won’t say how many snakes we found on occasion at the factory.  When we had to clear a new patch of grass and had enough workers they would surround the whole area and work in towards the centre, cutting the grass and killing escaping snakes as they went.  The number they killed at the centre of the grass patch on such occasions was unbelievable – mostly small ones, of course.  What was remarkable was how few people were bitten at Umbogintwini.  One day I saw a man bitten.  He was on a motor bike on a steep path through the bush, and as the bicycle roared past me up the slope a green mamba several feet long slithered quickly across the path and the man rode over it to kill it.  It reared up and bit him on the ankle.  That, too, was hardly believable; but I saw the two punctures on his ankle and got him into hospital, which was close at hand.  We gave him an anti-venom serum injection.  It would be dramatic to add that he died in agony; he didn’t, he had nothing worse than a headache.  The snake got away.

At first the staff all lived in Durban and travelled to and fro by train every day, but before long the younger ones found homes or lodgings along the coast nearer Umbogintwini, for it was a few years before we could build a village at the factory; I suppose there wasn’t the money.  The South Coast, as it was called anywhere south of Durban, was then regarded as “out in the bush” and no one foresaw it becoming the highly attractive residential strip of coast that it became later.  I lived in a pleasant little spot called Amanzimtoti in a house on a hill overlooking the Indian Ocean.  At that time an old Zulu chief of royal blood, Shingana, came to live only a few hundred yards away from me.  He had been moved out of Zululand because it was feared he might become the centre of any rebel movement; for there had been a Zulu rebellion in 1906 and this old man was looked upon as the Great Chief.  He was the 17th son (daughters were not counted) of Mpanda, a brother of Tshaka the greatest king of the Zulus, the most powerful African monarch in history whose power was known from Cape Colony to the great lakes of Central Africa – a great general and a bloodthirsty tyrant.  And so I came to know a nephew of Tshaka, thus making a link with the first quarter of the 19th century.  Shingana made himself known to me by sending a Zulu messenger to ask me to translate a letter, in English from a Dutchman in Northern Natal, which I did.  I took an interpreter with me to his kraal (group of huts) but Shingana, whom I found squatting, dressed only in a loin cloth, near the fire in the centre of his typical, round wattle and grass hut, insisted on my speaking in my poor Zulu and wouldn’t let my interpreter speak.  I learned afterwards that this was a matter of court etiquette, as a Zulu of the royal family must have as an interpreter only a member of the Mtetwa tribe.

Shingana had fought at Isandhlwana in the Zulu War of 1879 when he commanded an impi (regiment) on the occasion of the annihilation of a British force.  When I asked him to tell me about the battle he said “How can I talk about our fighting you?  We are friends now”.  He was captured later in that war and was sent to St Helena with King Cetywayo.  He had no complaint against his treatment by the British apart from his being allowed only one wife during his exile.  He told me he had, or had had, 70 wives and 110 children, but I didn’t check his figures.  Shingana was not a tall man but the sons I saw were magnificent specimens all six foot tall, with one exception, and wearing only leopard skins; a Zulu could wear this “costume” only if he had killed a leopard single-handed with an assegai (spear).  He was always friendly and courteous but I had the impression that he was disappointed in me because he had hoped, having learned that I was a “chemist”, that I would help him overcome some of the effects of old age.  He must have been an old man, over 80 years of age, when I knew him and he died a few years later.  I often wished I had known more Zulu so that I could have talked to him about “the old days” for there was more than a streak of greatness in the royal Zulus.

All three South African explosives factories had been expanded during the war years and it became obvious that after the war only two of the three factories were needed to keep the mines supplied.  The best-sited factory was at Modderfontein (Nobels) as it was in the gold mining area.  Umbogintwini, in my opinion, was the next best site, but De Beers had only the one factory (built by Cecil Rhodes) and were not likely to close that down.  When in 1919 Nobels and Kynoch joined the other explosives factories in Great Britain to form Explosives Trades Limited (which afterwards became Nobel’s again) Modderfontein and Umbogintwini came under the same management, it was obvious that Umbogintwini would be regarded as redundant.  Before this was announced I had been made manager of Umbogintwini and it soon looked as if I was to be the caretaker of a defunct factory which could only be “scrapped” and not fetch much as scrap.  It went “against the grain”, in those of us who had spent many years at Umbogintwini, to scatter the little community and evacuate the little village with its attractive setting and we made up our mind to put up a fight for the continuation of both factory and village.  There were two factors which led to Umbogintwini being kept going.  The first was that Major (now Colonel) Barley in Nobel’s was studying the manufacturing possibilities of their South African factories and he realised that a good case could be made for the manufacture of agricultural chemicals in South African as these were being imported in increasing quantities.  At Umbogintwini we had come to the same conclusion.

I had been “spare time” farming in the midlands of Natal (what a glorious country and climate that was, comparable with the highlands of Kenya) and we had been running an agricultural experiment station (amateurish, no doubt) on some of our surplus acres at Umbogintwini, where we carried out, inter alia, some experiments on sugar cane, maize and ground-nut diseases for Dr Storey F.R.S., the Government Mycologist, who had a laboratory in Durban but no land on which to do field experiments.  Everything combined to convince me that Umbogintwini could survive and make a profit by manufacturing the chemicals needed by the farmers, viz. fertilizers, cattle and sheep dips, locust poison, fruit tree sprays.  We already had a small superphosphate plant, the output of which went to a fertilizer mixing firm, and we decided that we must make our own fertilizer mixtures to be sold in our own name; and also greatly increase our “super” plant.  (Today I believe Umbogintwini had the largest output of any superphosphate factory south of the equator – about (x) thousand tons annually).

Nobel’s acted gamely.  They said they would give us 18 months in which to convince them that we could make Umbogintwini eventually a profitable venture; and they sent out Major Barley to discuss our problems and difficulties and potentialities.  To cut a long story short, Nobels didn’t wait 18 months; they were convinced we could “make good”.  And in the meantime we had gone ahead with improvising plant and advertising our goods.  The small team of technical men, artisans and unskilled workers had through this difficult time been working most loyally to keep things going.  We had to start to make manufactured products quite new to us and to build the necessary plants from the equipment and machinery of the explosives section which closed down, e.g. nitro-cotton-washing tanks became tobacco fermentation tanks for the manufacture of nicotine products.  Plants to make lime-sulphur; sodium arsenite from Rhodesian “arsenic”; liquid HCN; and in all about 40 products were made in plants constructed largely from tanks, pipes and sheet lead from the disused sections.  This did not happen overnight – it took, I suppose, a couple of years or more.  But we did convert our chemical laboratory and our industrial chemists into agricultural chemists overnight; and they did some very good pioneering and research work, largely due to Geo Ingham.  We showed farms how easy it was to damage germinating crops under South African conditions if fertilizers were wrongly “placed”; how important nitrogen was in the wetter areas especially for sugar cane and for grass; how even the wattle (tree) plantations needed superphosphate after the first rotation.  Soil analysis taught us a lot, I recall – chiefly to keep our mouths shut.  We had thought it a good idea (a fairly new one in those days but soon adopted by charlatans) to advertise that we would tell farmers who sent us a soil sample what fertilizers to use; a very risky procedure in a “new” country.  I remember three farms from very distant parts of South African met at a cotton growers’ conference in Swaziland and decided to take a sample of local Swazi soil, mix it thoroughly, divide it into three parts and dispatch the three portions from their distant farms to Umbogintwini for analysis.  Fortunately for our good name they each received practically the same report.  We had a most interesting time, for South Africa in those days had done very little work on either fertilizers or soils and we found British text-books often misleading for our South African conditions.

We had to learn a lot about packing a range of materials to withstand rough handling.  One day a guard on a train in Rhodesia dropped on the platform more violently than usual a box of glass tubes containing liquid HCN (for fumigating citrus trees).  The absorbent packing was good for most occasions but not for this and some of the contents of the broken tubes was spilled on the platform just as the Governor was being met by a guard of honour.  A dog wandered up to the patch of liquid and promptly turned up its toes, and the Governor was nearly forgotten in the panic.  Our packing case was given the guard of honour.

We had to learn salesmanship, too, over what is a sub-continent; and in our spare time master the essential details of the chemistry of cattle-dipping-tank fluids; the conditions fatal or favourable for the good “condition” of fertilizers dispatched to very different climates and altitudes, and much more etc.  We made lots of blunders in work that was so new to us, some that might have been most serious, but we learned rapidly from our mistakes and we convinced the head of McDougall’s (the insecticide firm, now of Cooper, McDougall and Robertson) that we could make and pack their products.  Major Barley had travelled out to South Africa with Mr Isaac McDougall (who had been the first to use derris, the vegetable fish-poison, as an insecticide).  He came to Umbogintwini and we formed “Kynoch McDougall Limited”.  Umbogintwini was to manufacture a range of “Ky-Mac” products and we were to sell also McDougall’s imported lines.  This put us in a good position to compete with the leading importers, Cooper’s, but we were astonished when a year or two later we heard that McDougall’s in Great Britain had amalgamated with Coopers, which left us in a somewhat anomalous position.

There is no doubt that our rapid success was due to good luck as well as to good guidance, but I do want to pay my tribute to that loyal and imaginative little band of technical men and artisans who kept Umbogintwini on the map where it still us.  (I was there again in 1949 and could hardly recognise it).  The next step was the formation of AE&CI which later grew into African Explosives and Chemical Industries, AE&CI, and which has played such an important part in the modern industrial and agricultural development of South Africa.

by Mr Scorer September 1968

In early 1910 the only occupied houses were privately owned by Mr & Mrs Warner and family, Mr & Mrs Frank Cutler and the Station Master.  The firm had placed orders for cottages to be built by the firm of J Dougall & Sons and by the first week in February the first two houses were ready in Highbury Road.  The Scorer family arrived in South Africa on 10 February and immediately took over one and were followed two weeks later by Mr & Mrs Weller and family.  As each cottage was completed a family took possession and soon a community was established.  Building continued for many months and a second road behind Highbury Road was completed and all houses occupied.  In Highbury Road a boarding house was built for bachelors, about 20-25 young employees being accommodated.  There was no provision made for eating at this place and the residents had to go to the large hall about 100 yards from the Time Office at the entrance to the factory for meals.  About 1911 a staff house was erected and Messrs A Chamberlain and Cocking arrived for a visit to Umbogintwini and stayed there for the duration of their visit.

In May 1910, the first white child was born at Umbogintwini, to Mr & Mrs Cutler.

It became evident to the manager that religious and social amenities were needed for the folk of the village and services were organised for the large Catholic community and the Nonconformists and Church of England were ministered to on alternate Sundays by a minister from St Pauls and a Wesleyan parson from Durban.  Services were held at first in the large dining hall, but the smell of cooking dinners did not appeal, also the congregation had to sit on forms without back rests.  At the first Church service held in the dining hall the infant daughter of Mr & Mrs Cutler was baptised.  It soon became evident that a change of venue was required and the services were held for a time in the government school in one of the class rooms.  The Bishop of Natal conducted evensong on one occasion.  Before doing so the younger folk were groomed on the behaviour expected for such an exalted person.

A house in Highbury Road was set aside for a social club, this housing a reading room and a bar.  A wood and iron building was erected in the grounds and a full-size billiard table installed.  On a few occasions, chairs were put in the grounds for a concert provided by local talent who used the verandah as a stage.  This, in a short time became too small for the requirements of the growing community and a new social club was erected.  A very well equipped library was a popular feature and the large hall could seat about 150 people.  Many concerts were given for war funds and the best artists from Durban gave their services free of charge.  The local dramatic society gave some excellent shows and debates often took place on Sunday evenings.  On another occasion a very fine evening was provided by an elocutionist from Durban.

Another event which surprised many people was a fete and sale of work organised for church funds for both communities.  The women folk put on a great exhibition of needlework and cakes etc.  When the club was fully established, the old premises were converted back to a dwelling house and the old billiard room was dismantled and re-erected as a church building to be used by the Protestant community.

The manager Mr Udal met with a very unfortunate accident when the horse he was riding took fright and he was dragged for a considerable distance suffering damaged ribs and many bruises.

The factory during the war years of 1914-18 was engaged on munitions and many extra employees were engaged.  Several men were imported from Great Britain as lead burners and some of the work they did was exhibited at the Durban Shows and aroused much comment.  There were several explosions at the factory, two occurring within a month, both resulting in loss of life.

A very amusing event took place (except for one person) in those early days – it was fashionable for the men to wear very heavy moustaches.  One gent who was always smart had a very well cultivated moustache, well waxed and pointed.  Alas!  He celebrated too well on one occasion and awakened to find one half had been cut off.  All the men who had sported this appendage were completely clean shaven.  No one ever found out the guilty party , but the ‘Duke’ disappeared shortly afterwards.  In 1922 the explosives factory was closed down and many employees had to find other employment, but any who had spent years in the village left with happy memories.

Shortly after the war Mr Dave Norse who was employed at the factory was the guest of honour at a ‘smoker’ at the club to celebrate his feat of scoring 304 not out in a match against the Transvaal.  This was the highest score ever recorded in South Africa and the club made it a great occasion.  Dave duly responded, but he was a better cricketer than a speaker.

A sports field with a concrete cricket pitch was the venue of many sporting events. It had not a very good top surface as the grass would not grow and often the footballers found it hard going in soft sand ankle deep.  Several of the employees were regular players in Durban first class teams including one who gained Natal colours.

The cricket team usually had weekly fixtures either on Saturday afternoons or all day Sunday with selected Durban teams.  The Rifle Club had monthly meetings and ammunition was given free.  On one occasion a buck raced across the range but in spite of the shots fired at it, escaped unscathed.  On another occasion one of the Indian markers at the butts was hit by a ricochet and had to be attended to. An air rifle club held weekly shoots in the Club Hall, for every ten shottists a silver spoon was given, the competitions being on a handicap system.  Two tennis courts were situated near to the sports field and were in great demand.  No Irish community would be complete without its national game – hurling.  The local men had their team and for a long time were top dogs, but there came one day when a very strong Durban team challenged them.  The locals, in spite of brand new green jerseys and shorts, were no match for their Durban opponents.

A 9-hole golf course was laid out and became the popular venue at weekends, chiefly at the expense of the tennis enthusiasts.  In the hunting season large parties of men with native beaters combed the bush and undergrowth between the factory and the railway line to Amanzimtoti.  Quite a large number of buck were shot on these occasions.

by H H Dodds 11 August 1953

The phenomenal development and increase in the gold mining and other mining industries in South Africa after the end of the South African war in the early days of the present century (20^th century), created an enormous demand for mining explosives.  In fact South Africa soon became the largest consumer of explosives in any country in the world.

There were two explosives factories already in existence in South Africa at this time.  These were firstly the old factory at Modderfontein near Johannesburg that had been taken over and modernised and expanded by Nobel’s Explosives Co. Limited, of Glasgow, and secondly the dynamite factory at Somerset West in the Western Cape Province that had been erected by the De Beer’s Company to supply them with explosives for their diamond mining.

However, these two factories were unable to cope with the increased demand for explosives in the country, and large quantities had to be imported from overseas.

One the of the largest exporters of explosives to South Africa during the decade immediately before Union was the well-known firm of Messrs Kynoch Limited of Birmingham, England, who were extensive producers of industrial, military and sporting explosives at their two explosives and chemical factories at Arklow, Co. Wicklow, Ireland and Kynochtown in Essex.  About this time the Arklow Factory was very fully occupied with the manufacture of explosives for South Africa.  Certain essential difficulties were experienced, mainly caused by the very variable weather conditions inseparable from the long sea journey from Britain to South Africa.  It was found difficult to guarantee that the explosives after passing through the tropics would on arrival in South Africa continue to comply with the extremely sensitive official “heat test” as it was called, that was rigidly enforced by the authorities to ensure that the explosives were perfectly stable and safe to handle if the necessary care were used.

Another difficulty, also attributable to high temperatures, was the fact that such explosives were liable to show the dangerous quality of exudation, that is that liquid nitro-glycerine might sweat out of its normally dry gelatinous physical combination with nitrocotton and other solid chemical compounds, and thereby make the material unsafe to handle.  Kynoch Limited therefore decided to build a factory in South Africa where nitro-glycerine could be manufactured and mixed with the other ingredients to form blasting gelatine dynamites and other commercial explosives on the spot.  This implied also the necessity of manufacturing the sulphuric and nitric acids required for converting glycerine into nitro-glycerine.

Alternative sites were considered in Natal, and near Port Elizabeth, and eventually the very favourable grant of land offered by the old Natal Government at Umbogintwini on the South Coast, 15 miles from Durban was accepted.  There was also a general concession in railway rates for all imported raw materials, which remained in force until 1951.

Before this was officially announced by the company, certain members of the staff of the Arklow factory, including the writer, were sounded by the management to learn whether they would accept employment at the new factory and soon afterwards extra staff, including Messrs W V Blewett and G Firth, were taken on at the Arklow factory in preparation for work at Umbogintwini.

In October 1908, although the factory was by no means yet completed, it was decided to send out the first batch of production staff from Arklow to South Africam in order for them to become acquainted with the conditions of life in the new country and accustomed to the design and layout of the new plant.

Accordingly in that month the RMS “Kildonan Castle” conveyed the following: Mr J Bower, Chief Chemist, W V Blewett, H H Dodds, G Firth and M A Troy, Factory Chemists, and the following all-Irish contingent of plant operators, R Knott, H White, P Murray, P Cunningham, P Kavanagh, D J Kavanagh and many others.

From Kynochtown and elsewhere came W Weller, C Scorer, A Bodeker and others.  Mr J P Udal, General Manager, C S Heaven, Chief Engineer, W Johnston, Foreman Rigger, T M Hoffe, Foreman, and several other mechanics and tradesmen required for building construction work were already here.

Somewhat later came Messrs W A Martin, Explosives Works Manager, A T Scurr, Factory Chemist, W I Taylor, Chemical Works Manger and others.  Members on the commercial side of the undertaking in the early days were Mr Gold, a director of the company, T J Greensill, Commercial Manager and C Allbutt, Chief Clerk.  These were later replaced by Messrs P J Gorman, Corton and F W Hinchley, also H V Franklin now of Natal Estates Limited.  S H Dark and F Hewitt were members of the office staff for many years.

First Impressions

One Sunday afternoon about the middle of November 1908, we arrived in Durban and were very pleased with its appearance.  I think it was a much more attractive place in those days than now.  It was, of course, much smaller and cleaner and far less crowded, and there were fortunately very few motor cars then.  The population of the 1911 census was slightly over 69 thousand and was probably about 65 thousand in 1908.

The Beach Hotel was the only building on what is now the Marine Parade.  Below the lower Marine Parade there was a shark-proof bathing enclosure protected by a semi-circular fishing pier.  Immediately facing this was Campbell’s Tearoom with wide verandah and balcony overlooking the bathing enclosure.  The only other building on the seafront was the municipal bandstand where there were frequent military band performances supplied by one of the British regiments that formed a garrison at Pietermaritzburg.  However, it was to be some little time before we saw all this.  We were met at the quay by Mr Udal who took us to Galloway House, a well-known boarding establishment that is still in existence on Musgrave Road where the company had booked accommodation for us temporarily.  We hoped to have a day to settle down and receive and unpack our luggage and see something of our new surroundings, but it was not to be.

Mr Udal instructed us to be sure to catch the 7.45 a.m. train to Umbogintwini the next morning; we discovered that the return train left Umbogintwini at 5.45 p.m., arriving in Durban at 6.40, so that we saw very little of the latter place until the following week-end.

Mr Udal was a very capable and highly respected manager, and was usually just in his treatment of his staff, but he was very strict.

Umbogintwini and the whole of the South Coast has changed enormously during the past 45 years.  In 1908 Umbogintwini was little more than a series of clearings containing partially constructed buildings in a large area of dense virgin bush.  There was a small railway station and sidings recently constructed to replace the former primitive ‘halt’ because of the factory building operations; the only dwelling house for miles around was the station master’s house.  This house has long since been demolished and replaced, but the second house to be built (in1909) for Mr Cutler, fitter, is still in existence.

The land occupied by the company consisted of 1400 acres of bush extending over the mile and a half width of land extending between the South Coast Road (which was diverted to circumscribe the site) and the Natal Government Railways South Coast line.  On the seaward side of the railway there was nothing but practically impenetrable bush.

When manufacturing production began not long after this, first at the acid factory and soon afterwards on the nitro-glycerine plant, both were operated as continuous processes which of course involved night duty, in which the chemical staff took turns in supervision.  This was a most eerie experience at that time.  After the last train down the coast passed through Umbogintwini station at 6.15 p.m. and until the arrival of the first train at 7.20 a.m. the following day, there was no communication with the outside world by rail or road, or even (at first) by telephone.

Besides the railway the only means of access to the factory was a rough steep foot track following the electric power line and water main connecting with the water supply pumps located on the Umbogintwini river close to the road drift, about two miles from the factory.

Transport

One prominent feature of the railway journey was the Umbogintwini bank, a steep incline between Isipingo and Umbogintwini, said to have a grade of 1 in 30, or about the maximum grade possible for a railway not provided with cog-wheels and ratchet rail.

It was very common for trains to be unable to ascend this slope, especially in the early mornings with heavy dew on the line.  After several abortive attempts to make the grade, the train, usually consisting of four small passenger coaches would be divided, the first two coaches being taken up to Umbogintwini station first, the engine then returning to collect the other two.

As soon as the passengers realised what was happening there was a rush from the two rear coaches to those in front, so as not to be marooned in the temporarily deserted coaches.  A few years later the same performance was still being carried out, but by this time some dwelling houses and a school had been built at Umbogintwini, and the train served to bring children from the neighbouring village of Isipingo to the school.  When the division of the train on the hill occurred, there was then a counter-current of school children rushing from the first two coaches to the last two, so that they might have a plausible excuse for postponing for half an hour or more the dreary hour when they were supposed to arrive at school.

Eventually a branch road was constructed from the Umbogintwini river drift to the factory so that it was possible to motor from Durban.  This branch road was at first of a strange dark purple colour, having been surfaced with what was known as “burnt ore”, being the residual iron oxide derived from the combustion in the factory of iron pyrites as a source of sulphur for the manufacture of sulphuric acid.  It usually had also a distinct odour of burnt sulphur due to a small residue of oxidisable sulphur.

The road from Durban, though rough, was passable for motor cars except after heavy rains, when there was a succession of flooded drifts.  The only road bridge on the Natal Coast roads at that time was the Connaught Bridge over the Umgeni river at the northern end of Durban.

Those were the early days of motoring, when tyre covers were not expected to last more than about 2000 miles, and a journey from Durban to Umbogintwini and back without a puncture was considered rather fortunate.

At all events, there was none of the congestion of motor vehicles that makes travel on the South Coast road near Durban so difficult today.  Of course, the excellent motor road known as Kingsway that passes between Umbogintwini and the sea today, presenting magnificent views of the coast line, did not exist in those days, and the South Coast road diverged several miles inland of Umbogintwini before re-approaching the coast at Amanzimtoti.

Incidentally several of the factory staff and employees lived at Amanzimtoti in those days, which is much nearer to the factory than Durban.

The chief disadvantage was the very inconvenient railway service with the only practicable alternative to railway travel being a three mile walk along the railway track.  Also, there were very few of the amenities of life that are so well provided at Amanzimtoti today.

On several occasions before the construction of substantial road and railway bridges along the coast, Umbogintwini was isolated by floods.  One occasion was in 1917 when practically every railway bridge on the Natal Coast was washed away and Umbogintwini was cut off for several days, both telephone and telegraph services, as well as road and railway communication being destroyed.

Supplies of bread and meat were held up and we subsisted largely on stocks of tinned foods and biscuits and poultry for several days.  The mailbags were heaved by a powerful nature across the gap in the railway bridge over the raging torrent of the Umbogintwini river.

Drainage

At first the factory effluents were allowed to drain away into what appeared to be no-mans land at the southern and lower end of the factory area.  Eventually however, these acid waters found their way into the Amanzimtoti lagoon and began to destroy the fish and plant life there.  This resulted in an interdict against the company and a lawsuit that was adjudged in Pietermaritzburg.  The consequence was that Kynochs had to construct a drain leading out to sea to convey the factory waste.  This open drain ran parallel with the railway line for a considerable distance until it reached a spot towards Amanzimtoti where a channel could be cut through the sand dunes leading to the sea at minimum cost.

The drain alongside the railway line was at a slightly lower incline than the railway incline going down to Amanzimtoti, consequently a seen from the train it presented the curious optical illusion of water travelling uphill.  The writer recollects hearing two lady passengers comment on this saying that “Kynochs must be pumping the water up the drain somehow”.

The principal waste factory product for disposal besides the burnt ore already mentioned, was sodium bisulphate, a residue to nitric acid manufacture as usually practiced in those days.  Sodium bisulphate is a very hygroscopic and highly acid and corrosive sticky white lumpy substance, for which practically no use could be found in this country.  Evidently the explosives factory at Modderfontein had even greater difficulties in disposing of their sodium bisulphate, since about this time they went to the trouble and expense of railing the material to Natal to be dumped into the abovementioned drain.

Principal products of manufacture

For the first few years the factory was solely employed in the manufacture of mining explosives of various grades and for various purposes, ranging from blasting gelatine through different grades of gelatine dynamites to the powder dynamites.  Blasting gelatine, the most powerful explosive then known, consisted entirely of nitro-glycerine gelatinised with about 7% of nitrocotton and was used for the initial breaking of very hard rock.  Gelignite, the most powerful of the gelatine dynamites in common use contained from 60 to 65% of nitro-glycerine gelatinised as in blasting gelatine and mixed with 35 to 40% of wood pulp and sodium or potassium nitrate; this moderated the violence of the explosion and reduced the cost.  Gelignite became the most widely used of mining explosives.  There were other grades of gelatine dynamite of similar ingredients to the above, but mainly containing smaller quantities of nitro-glycerine, such as 50, 40, 30 or 20%.  These were correspondingly less powerful and cheaper, being used in lighter work in softer rocks.  There were also 15 and 10% nitro-glycerine products, but these did not required the expensive nitrocotton since the proportionately large quantity of woodmeal was sufficient to absorb the nitro-glycerine thoroughly and uniformly to make a dry powder known as a dynamite.  The original word dynamite was applied to the first mining explosives made with nitro-glycerine before the gelatinising absorbent, nitrocotton was discovered.  Kieselguhr, a highly porous and finely divided mineral was used, though not in itself combustible, and was capable of thoroughly absorbing up to three or four times its weight of nitro-glycerine.  However, with the discovery of nitrocotton and its properties, the greater values of gelatinous explosives, and of dynamites containing combustible mixtures for absorbents, such as various forms of cellulose with sources of oxygen such as nitrates were recognised.

Nitro-glycerine was and probably still is, the most important constituent of mining explosives though now partially replaced by other substances.  It is made by allowing pure glycerine to react with pure nitric acid in the absence of water.  But since water is formed as an essential product of the reaction, it must be removed as soon as formed.  For this purpose concentrated sulphuric acid with its intense affinity for water is used, though it takes no direct part in the formation of the nitro-glycerine.  Glycerine is, of course, a by-product of soap manufacture and must be highly refined for the preparation of nitro-glycerine; it must therefore pass very stringent tests for purity.

It is carefully and slowly run into a tank containing the requisite mixture of concentrated nitric and sulphuric acids, care being taken to stir thoroughly (usually be means of compressed air jets) and keep the temperature down by refrigerating coils, otherwise the nitro-glycerine may violently decompose or explode.

When the operation is complete the mixture is allowed to settle, when the nitro-glycerine is displaced by the residual acid mixture to form an upper layer of clear colourless or pale yellow liquid; this is made to overflow into another tank by gradually injecting more residual acid from an earlier operation into the lower part of the tank.  The nitro-glycerine so obtained is washed several times with dilute sodium carbonate solution and with water until neutral and until it has passed the very strict and sensitive stability tests.

It is then mixed with carefully dried and tested nitrocotton and afterwards with any other required ingredient.

A feature of a nitro-glycerine plant is that each separate operation must be performed in a special building for that purpose and no other.  It is located on a slope so that the nitro-glycerine and spent acids can flow by gravity along protected gutters from one building to the next until the process is completed.

Each separate building is built at what is indicated by experienced a safe distance against explosive shock from any of the other buildings, having regard to the maximum amount of explosives permitted in these buildings, and is also protected by a surrounding mound of earth from any direct horizontal hit by debris.

These are only some of the very elaborate safety devices and precautions to avoid explosions and to minimise their destructive effects if they occur.  A considerable area of land is thus needed for a nitro-glycerine factory or “hill” as it is commonly called.  Although accidental and very violent explosions do occur at times, they are usually at long intervals; they are isolated to one or two buildings and the number of casualties is small.  The mixing, cartridging, wrapping, packing and storing operations are also separated over a wide area, and subject to the same protective devices, but on level land, since the products are now solid and have to be transported from one section to the next by tramline.

The sulphuric acid was originally made by what is termed the chamber process, that is by allowing sulphur dioxide gas resulting from the burning of sulphur, or pyrites containing sulphur, to pass into large leaden chambers where it is oxidised and converted into sulphuric acid by reaction with nitric oxide and moisture.  The dilute sulphuric acid thus formed was concentrated by passing it in the form of a finely divided spray down a high tower packed with porous acid-resistant bricks and strongly heated by a coke furnace.  This was known as the Gaillard process.  Later even more concentrated sulphuric acid was obtained by oxidising some of the sulphur dioxide to trioxide with the use of a catalyst of ferric oxide followed by platinum and absorbing the sulphur trioxide by means of normal concentrated sulphuric acid from the Gaillard towers.  This process of making sulphur trioxide was known as the “contact” or “Mannheim” process.  Later vanadium was used as a catalyst for oxidising sulphur dioxide to the trioxide, from about 1912.

Nitric acid was made at Umbogintwini by the old process of distilling in large iron retorts a mixture of sulphuric acid and sodium nitrate, also known as “Chile Saltpetre”, so-called because of its occurrence in Chile in vast deposits on the dried-up and rainless site of a former sea.  Nitric acid distilled over and was condensed in large earthen-ware receivers.  The residue in the stills was the objectionable sodium bisulphate already mentioned.  This method of making nitric acid is seldom if ever used nowadays – it is usually made by oxidation of atmospheric nitrogen by converting it first into ammonia.  Part of the ammonia is oxidised to nitric acid, which is then neutralised by the remainder of the ammonia to make ammonium nitrate.

Effects of the First World War

The World War of 1914 to 1918 greatly affected the Umbogintwini factory.  Up till then the factory manufactured and sold exclusively mining explosives except occasionally relatively small quantities of sulphuric acid.  During the war, however, the factory undertook the manufacture on a large scale of guncotton for military purposes, eventually making as much as 140 tons per week.  Guncotton, which is a highly nitrated cellulose containing about 14% of nitrogen, was exported to Britain, mainly for the purpose of making cordite, but to some extent for naval mines.  Cordite is a form of smokeless military explosive made from guncotton and nitro-glycerine into a gelatinous product with the aid of petroleum jelly.  This guncotton was made without reducing the continued manufacture of 100 tons per week of mining explosives, so that the production of sulphuric and nitric acids had to be greatly increased also and the factory much extended for these purposes.  In the early part of the war there was a serious shortage of glycerine, largely owing to the stoppage of supplies from Continental Europe from whence a considerable proportion of the glycerine used had been obtained.  Shortly before the war a large consignment was received from Germany of what was exported as 98% glycerine, but on routine analysis was found to contain only about 10% of glycerine, the remainder consisting of water.

Kynochs created a subsidiary company in Natal in 1910 to manufacture glycerine from whale oil, but it was first found impossible to produce a pure glycerine free from propylene glycol.  A large scale explosion, fortunately not attended by loss of life, resulted in 1911 from the nitration of this product, but eventually a sufficiently pure glycerine was made from this source.  However, this source of supply was limited for many years.

Later during the war there was a very severe shortage of chemical fertilizers, especially superphosphate in this country, importation being greatly reduced, so that Kynochs were asked to undertake the manufacture of superphosphate at Umbogintwini since they were in a position to do so by supplying the necessary sulphuric acid to convert imported raw rock phosphate into superphosphate.  This led to the company becoming permanently an important producer of chemical fertilizers.  Other chemicals that were very short in supply because of the war were also produced, such as Epsom Salts, Glauber Salts, Aluminaferric (sulphates of Magnesium, Sodium and Aluminium respectively), hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, chemical pure mineral acids generally, also hydrocyanide acid for fumigation purposes, etc. etc.  In this way the wide range of chemical manufacture now made by the company was first established.

About the end of the war, Kynochs Limited merged their Umbogintwini factory into a new South African company, now known as African Explosives and Chemical Industries Limited, which included also the factories at Modderfontein and Somerset West.

The manufacture of mining explosives was later concentrated at the two last named factories, leaving the Umbogintwini factory free to develop further a number of chemical industries, besides building eventually the largest superphosphate plant in the southern hemisphere.  The cessation of explosives was however, a serious blow to the factory at the time, under the prevailing economic conditions.

During the general economic depression after the 1914-1918 war, the future of the Umbogintwini factory was regarded somewhat doubtfully, and the company even encouraged members of the technical staff and skilled workmen to seek work elsewhere if they desired, and provided generous bonuses for those doing so, an offer which the writer accepted and emigrated to America in 1921, returning to South African in 1924.  Mr W Helcke was general manager at the time (1921) having succeeded P Udal; after Mr Helcke’s return to Britain in 1922, he was succeeded by W V Blewett, and it was largely due to the efforts of the latter and those of the staff who elected to remain that even a temporary close-down was avoided.

However, subsequent events have shown that there was no need to fear prolonged recession.  The excellent factory site at Umbogintwini within easy reach of Durban as the premier port of the Union and a rapidly growing industrial city, and even nearer to the shortest route in the Union from the coast to the rand, will always provide excellent opportunity for enterprising ownership and skilled production to help meet the ever-growing industrial and agricultural chemical needs of the Union.

The writer has pleasure in acknowledging the help of Messrs W G Bates, G Firth, A T Scurr and Miss D Scorer in recalling and revising many of the matters to which reference has been made.

by Mr G Norton, 16 April 1948

During the autumn of 1907, Mr Arthur Chamberlain, (brother of the famous Joe), Chairman of the above company, visited South Africa with a view to obtaining contracts with the South African mining houses for the supply of explosives from the company’s existing High Explosives Factories at Kynochtown, England, and Arklow, Ireland.

He learned, however, that the two South African factories already producing explosives could manufacture and sell at a much lower price than he could possibly land explosives in South Africa.  Contracts were promised Kynoch Limited by certain South African mining interests, provided manufacture took place in South Africa and prices were competitive.

Mr Chamberlain decided that if manufacture took place near a port in South Africa, he would also be in a better position to supply India, Australia, etc. at a cheaper selling price than from his factories in the British Isles.  He ruled out Cape Town as a site for manufacture, owing to the long railway journey to the mines.  He also ruled out Port Elizabeth and East London, as neither place had good harbour facilities for landing the necessary raw materials, etc.

An attractive offer was made to him by the Natal Government of a site situate 14 miles from Durban, viz Umbogintwini.  The Natal Government offered Mr Chamberlain 1600 acres of land free of cost, provided the firm:

1. cleared the bush at their own expense
2. erected a factory and plant costing jointly not less than £100 000,                      and
3. undertook to employ local white labour, apart from a small number of experts who would have to be transferred from England or Ireland.

In addition to the free offer of land, the Natal Government also agreed to carry building material, machinery and bulk raw materials imported into Natal, from Maydon Wharf, Durban to the factory site at a flat rate of one shilling per ton.

The Board of Directors in Birmingham cabled agreement to a maximum expenditure of £200 000 for a factory and plant capable of producing 90 tons of explosives per week and Mr Chamberlain thereupon:

(a)      accepted the offer and conditions of the Natal Government relating to the free gift of land.

(b)      arranged five years’ contracts with various mining houses (particularly the Albu Group) for a continued supply of explosives, commencing June 1909, at prices somewhat less than those of the other explosives firms.

It was decided by the Board not to form a separate company but to treat the South African business as a branch of the English firm.

To finance the expenditure Kynoch Limited raised £250 000 by way of 5% First Mortgate Debenture Stock, which was secured on the whole of the assets of Kynoch Limited, Birmingham.

The bush was cleared and building commenced early in 1908, while the majority of the plant was erected by the end of that year.  In addition, dwelling houses, together with a Staff House were erected for:

1. the technical personnel due to arrive from England,
2. the small number of highly experienced workmen transferred from the firm’s Irish factory.

Mr Cocking, one of the directors of the company, was made responsible for the efficient working of the factory and visited the factory yearly.

Manufacture started early in 1909 and by June of that year production was sufficient to meet deliveries promised to the mines by that date.  Production gradually increased during the year and the factory was working three shifts and meeting full demands by the end of December 1909.

Unfortunately, Mr Chamberlain, when fixing the selling prices of explosives to be supplied to the mines, had based them on the price of glycerine fluctuating between £45 per ton (the price when contracts were made) and a peak price of £50 per ton.

Immediately on his return to England early in 1908 Mr Chamberlain attempted to obtain long-term contracts for the supply of glycerine at £47,10 per ton, but was unable to do so, in fact:

(a)      the large soap manufacturing interests in England, who were antagonistic to Kynochs Limited because they also manufactured soap but sold at lower prices than the Soap Cartel, and

(b)      Nobel Explosives Company, Glasgow, who did not welcome Kynoch Limited’s competition in South Africa, owing to their financial interests in British South African Explosives Co. Limited, successfully combined together to “corner” glycerine, raising the price to Kynoch Limited to £72.  This was a serious blow to the Kynoch South African venture, as only very small supplies of glycerine could be obtained from the continent of Europe at approximately £55 per ton.

To solve the difficult position, the firm, on the advice of an expert, decided to erect a factory on the Indian Ocean side of the Bluff, near the Durban breakwater, for the purpose of extracting glycerine from whale oil.  The expert, a man by the name of Bearpark, was engaged to manage the factory and quantities of glycerine were produced by this means.  The residents of Durban, however, soon petitioned the Council for the removal of the factory owing to the objectionable odour wafted inland.

Soon after supplies of this particular glycerine had been used in the manufacture of explosives two serious explosions occurred at the Umbogintwini factory within a short time of one another, which the Inspector of Mines considered were traceable to the quality of the glycerine manufactured at the Bluff factory.  This verdict caused the glycerine plant to be immediately dismantled and sold, the buildings being sold some years later.  This particular adventure resulted in an additional loss of £65 000 and the interest on the first 5% Mortgage Debenture Stock had to be found by the Home factories instead of from the profits of the South African venture.

The glycerine situation eased considerably during 1911 and the price became normal in 1912, and remained so up to 1914.  Contracts with the mining houses were due to renewal early in 1914 and new contracts were signed for a period of three years at prices which enabled the company to make a reasonable profit.

Soon after the outbreak of war, supplies of glycerine became very scarce and the mining houses became anxious in regard to the possibility of explosives firms supplying the large quantity of explosives required.  The manager of the Umbogintwini factory, Mr J P Udal, together with the chemical staff (Mr G Firth in particular) experimented with and produced a substitute explosive called “Sengite”:

S = Substitute
E = Explosive
N = No
G = Glycerine
ITE

which contained no glycerine but collodion cotton and sodium nitrate.  This new explosive, while not nearly so effective as the usual explosives used, was reasonably successful and was taken in quite large quantities by the various mining houses.

When the contracts became due for renewal in 1917 the Chamber of Mines decided that selling prices should be fixed on audited cost of production (excluding packing and maintenance charges), plus a fixed rate of profit, a fixed price per case for pacing and 1/6d per case to cover maintenance of buildings and plant.

During the first World War, 80 ton and 30 ton factories were erected to enable nitro cotton to be produced and shipped to England for HM Government.  The Umbogintwini factory also developed, on a small scale, quite a number of new chemical productions which had previously been imported either from England or Australia.  The factory returned £60 000 profit from these new ventures.

At that time also the Minister of Railways approached us with a request that we produce red paint and stated that he was prepared to place contracts with the firm for the whole of the paint required for their rolling stock.  The case for the paint was the residue from burned pyrites, from which it was necessary to extract the small sulphur content remaining.  The Board in Birmingham, however, decided against the provision of the necessary capital for this venture and the deal fell through.

During the 1914-1918 war the firm also had in mind the expenditure of a large amount of capital in Africa for the production of nitrogen from the air by means of the “Arc” process.  An option was obtained on a colliery at Enyati and on the services of a Frenchman, by name Rouillard, and preparations went forward for the development of this business.  The new parent company formed in London in 1918 and styled Explosives Trades decided not to proceed with this venture.  During the same period negotiations took place with Safco Limited, Durban, with a view to a price agreement fro the sale of fertilizers, one of the new chemical products which the Umbogintwini factory had developed at that time.  These negotiations led to a proposal from Mr May of Safco Limited to merge the interests of the two fertilizer companies.  Later Mr May proposed the outright sale of his fertilizer business to Kynoch Limited.  Many meetings took place and a provisional price was decided upon, subject to the agreement of the Board of Kynoch Limited in Birmingham.  At this stage, however, negotiations were postponed pending the arrival of Mr Chamberlain in Africa.  When Mr Chamberlain arrived in Durban Mr Udal had unfortunately left for the United States and Mr May of Safco Limited at his first meeting with Mr Chamberlain desired to start negotiations on a different basis, which would give him a price 50% higher than previously demanded, and negotiations came to an end.  Mr May later approached Explosives Trades Limited, requiring a larger price than any previously suggested, but on investigation it was found that the price asked was not justified and negotiations finally ended.

The company was offered arsenic-free, gold-bearing pyrites from a property near Sabie.  After the necessary investigation the company signed a contract to take all the pyrites mined, so long as they complied with specifications laid down at £1 per ton, (2) to expend capital to extract the gold from the pyrites, (3) to share the proceeds fro the sale of the gold on a 30/70% basis (Kynoch share 30%).  (Pyrites were difficult to obtain at that time due to war conditions and shipments from abroad cost from £1.17.0 to £2.0.0 per ton f.o.b.)

A large tonnage was obtained from this property before the mine petered out sometime in 1922 but the firm made a profit on the gold extraction after writing off the cost of the special plant required.

The plant was subsequently used for the extraction of nicotine from tobacco.

The merging, early in 1918, of the Explosives, Cartridge, Fuse and Black Powder manufacturing firms in England, viz. Nobel Explosives Co Ltd., Glasgow; Kynoch Limited, Birmingham; Bickford & Co., Cornwall; Eley Bros., London; etc., etc., into one company styled “Explosives Trades Limited”, largely affected the Umbogintwini and Modderfontein factories.  Early in 1919 Mr Arthur Chamberlain (son of the Mr Chamberlain who originally negotiated the factory site) visited South Africa with a gentleman named General Milman, with the intention of purchasing the Cape Explosives Works and the merging of the three explosives works into one South African company, the share capital to be held entirely by Explosives Trades Limited.  These negotiations came to nought and, in turn, the De Beers interests sought to buy from Explosives Trades Limited the Modderfontein and Umbogintwini assets.  In June 1919 it appeared that this latter deal had been crowned with success, Explosives Trades Limited having cabled agreement to the terms of the main heads of agreement.  A few days after Mr Chamberlain had sailed for England, however, the deal was declared “off”, due to some misunderstanding between Sir George Albu and General Milman, who had been left by Mr Chamberlain in Africa to take charge of the two factories until such time as De Beers finally took over.

Immediately negotiations with De Beers ceased, all efforts were concentrated on the complete fusion of the Kynoch South African and the British South African Explosives interests.  A decision was soon made to:

1. concentrate manufacture of explosives for the South African mining houses at Modderfontein;
2. to manufacture explosives at Umbogintwini for export;
3. to develop fertilizers and extend the manufacture of chemical by-products at Umbogintwini.

From 1920 to 1924 other attempts to bring about a fusion between the De Beers interests and Explosives Trades interests, known as Nobel Industries, Limited, were made but failed.  Meanwhile, the concentration of explosives at Modderfontein became an accomplished fact, while the Umbogintwini factory concentrated on the manufacture of fertilizers and chemical by-products.

by his daughter, Helen Macfady 14 August 1968

I was asked to give some facts about my father and memories of our early days at Umbogintwini and here they are.  The memories of very small children I am afraid.

First I think I should tell about my father Thomas Arthur Warner – for the rest of the account I will call him TAW.  Born in Australia in 1876, died in South Africa in 1955.  His father was Canon T D Warner, a canon of Brisbane Cathedral and his mother Eugenie (nee McDowell).  He was educated at the Toowoomba Grammar School and afterwards qualified as a surveyor at Sydney University.  Archie McDowell, his uncle, was Surveyor General of Queensland and took TAW with a team of surveyors who surveyed the east coast of Queensland.  This entailed months of camping out in the “Blue”.  At university level he played rugby for Queensland.

In 1902 he left Australia for a holiday in South Africa.  He found South Africa interesting, full of opportunities and possibilities and decided to prolong his stay.  This was the boom time after the Boer War – it was followed by the 1905 slump.

TAW decided to work in Durban and joined J H E Wall who was one of the leading surveyors of that time.  He later met and married (1905) J H E Wall’s sister who, with her mother, had come out to South Africa to live with her brother.

In 1907 TAW bought land at what is now called Warner Beach and planted sugar cane  and built a house.  He led a deputation asking for a siding in that area and when the request was granted, the siding was called Warner’s Beach, after him.

In 1909 he met Mr Udal.  Mr Udal had been sent out by Kynochs of Arklow to find a suitable site to establish a dynamite factory.  He asked TAW to survey and lay out the factory site and village.  This TAW did first while still living at Warner’s Beach and then (1910) moved to Umbogintwini itself where the company had built him a house.

In our time at Umbogintwini there were two explosions.  When the first one happened we were living in Durban (1910?)  We, the Warners, had exchanged houses with the Udals so they were at Umbogintwini in our house, when it happened.  The Udals house was in Durban high on Ridge Road.  It is hard to recapture the reactions of so long ago.  Nell remembers the frightening sound of the explosion, she remembers too how TAW had to rush to catch a train at night to get to the factory to assist in and to organise rescue operations.  He told how they had had to approach the huts very cautiously, to see about removing the dead bodies, and how they had to calm the terrified natives, all the while fearing that some careless or rough movements might set off another blast.  There are probably company minutes that give all the details of these explosions.  We remember the sense of danger and the careful precautions taken by everyone always.  There were grass sand banks round each little hut.

There was a second explosion in 1912 when Nell was at school in the village school.  She remembers the appalling reverberations of the explosion and the terrified screams of a girl who knew that her father was working on that shift in the factory.  She remembers how all the children were sent home and that women were hurrying, looking frightened and anxious to the gates of the factory for news of their men.  (She also remembers that Mr Bates, the school master, was tilting back his chair and that he fell over backwards).

There were four children in our family, Nell, Helen and the twins, Sybil and Archie.  Archie died of diphtheria in 1912.  In 1913 we, all the family, went to England on six months’ leave.  We stayed with our grandparents at Shephall Rectory in Hertfordshire.  My grandfather had now returned to England from Australia on retirement.  We returned to South Africa just before the outbreak of war.

4 August 1914: men from Kynochs were not released for military service, a volunteer corps was formed.  According to a photo we have TAW looked smart and keen drilling with this company.

I think much hard work was done at the factory in the next four war years.

What we remember: the fumes from the factory were pungent, Nell’s tendency to asthma was aggravated and it became impossible for her to live at the coast.  This meant that at a very early age she, aged 8, then a year or two later Sybil and I, were sent to boarding school at Uplands and then St Annes.  Also, to avoid the coast, we spent our holidays up-country in the Dargle, Nottingham Road area.  So our memories of Umbogintwini belong to a very early age.  After we went to boarding school I do not remember going back.

House: our house was up a rise a little way out of the village.  We had an acre of ground and my mother, a natural gardener, at once set about making a garden.  The soil was red and sandy and poor.  She planted grass and Umkluhle trees, kaffir boom and syringas, also I remember lots of flowering shrubs which flourished – Barberton Bohenia, Plumbago, Lassiandra, Pride of India, Bougainvillea, the deep purple original one and a mauvy pink one.  A potato creeper protected a corner of the verandah from the sun.  There was a fernery with fuchsias.  The orchard was simple – a patch of pineapples, guavas, lemons and bananas.  At Christmas time we decorated the house with wild asparagus which grew wild.

The bush was all about us.  There were far away high trees above the bush where the monkeys used to swing and play.

There were Akaffir paths through the bush, single track paths, tramped out by Africans making their way to their kraals – a single tracks and perforce one walked single file.  We considered these walks “daring”, a little apprehensive of meeting monkeys – no doubt we caught the caution from those in charge of us who were on the look out for snakes.  I never remember fearing Africans.

Another walk was towards the sea, a wider track, along this way there were cleared patches, old mealie fields, which were burnt in spring and after rain we found wild flowers.  It seemed in those days a profusion.  I can remember the excitement of finding wild violets, daisies and gloriosa and everlastings and lilies all about us and the new grass coming away from the old clumps that had been burnt.

The sea itself was more difficult to reach.  We walked a long way along the sandy path through the bush to the top of the “cliff”, a steep drop down to the shore.  Down this a path had been made.  A soft sandy path that zig-zagged down the steep drop to the beach.

We loved the beach – rocks, pools, sand, picnics – bliss, until one had to climb back up that interminable hill – or so it seemed to us then.

The roads in the village and in the factory grounds were deep purple or red, lovely colours.  The pyrites they were made from came from the factory.

There was a road which had been cut out along the red hill leading up to Umbogintwini from Isipingo.  Hazardous in wet weather for there was a steep fall down one side and a high bank on the other, leaving not much room for manouevre on a rainy, slippery day.

At this time many of the indentured Indians were becoming independent.  House servants, gardeners, dhotis and cooks were often Indians.  The market gardeners were Indians too and used to carry round their vegetables in wire baskets attached to the two ends of a bamboo balanced on a shoulder.

The African women at that time left the location to work – the men, by and large, worked for six months and spent six months in the location.

The first car was, I think, an Overland.  After brief instructions Mr Udal and TAW decided to try it out by driving to Maritzburg.  This road was far removed from the double highway of today.  The Inchanga hill was a trial for any car and at one fork in the road TAW told us, they had to get out and examine the tracks to be sure of taking the “main” road.  They lunched and relaxed in Maritzburg and drank a very good “Beaunne”.  TAW never forgot this and tackled the journey back in the afternoon.  In the course of this adventurous trip they both learnt to drive the car with confidence.

There were lots of Irish names at Umbogintwini:  Roches, Lazenbys, O’Connors, and so on.

The Udals had brought out with them an Irish nurse for their children, Susan, who could dance an Irish jig and sing an Irish song with eclat.  Long, long afterwards she looked after my children and Susan Underwood could still sing and dance a jig and her pretty Irish brogue was still there.  She died in Nazareth House last year (1967) at the age of ninety – she claimed ninety anyway.

There were also lots of Irish terrier dogs with fighting Irish temperaments – we had one, Sandy.  The furious clashing sound of a dogfight still associates itself in my mind with Irish terriers and Umbogintwini.

TAW was among the enthusiasts who planned the golf course.  It ran along our boundary were the ‘monkey nut’ field had been.

In 1918 – 1919 TAW rejoined J H E Wall in a surveyor partnership and bought a sugar estate at Chakas Kraal on which he had been a manager.  It became obvious that Waldene needed an injection of TAW’s energy and enterprise and the family was moved to Chakas Kraal in 1920.  TAW worked tremendously hard establishing the farm.  He became Chairman of the Natal Planters Union and was one of the moving spirits in establishing the Sugar Experimental Station.

In 1925 he became a member, and very much interested in, the Natal Land Board.  Later he became Chairman of the Natal Land Board.  In this capacity he was appointed a member of the Central Land Board and in this position travelled widely and became most knowledgeable about many schemes for the use of South African land and rivers.

He was the Government Representative on the Board of the Umfolozi Co-operative Sugar Planters from its inception until he retired in 1955.

In 1934 he went to Mauritius interested in the growing and production of sugar on the island.

In 1946 he went on long leave to Australia and New Zealand and on this trip he investigated sugar growing and milling in Australia and wrote a report for the Sugar Association.

In 1946 he retired from the Central Land Board and built a home near the sea at Compensation Beach and lived there in his retirement, attending meetings of the Umfolozi Co-op until 1955.

In 1955 he died following an operation for a duodenal ulcer.

by Dr Scully

Early in the Second World War (1939-1945) when Royal Naval ships called in Durban for supplies and servicing, they were loaded with explosives which had to be removed from the ships as they were a danger to the safety of the graving dock, this was most inconvenient as they had no special place to store them.

The Admiralty approached the company, through Dr Scully, and at government level to obtain land at Kynochs.  This was duly done and the explosives were loaded onto trains and taken to Kynochs where they were guarded by personnel.  This proved unsatisfactory as there were no facilities for the men.  Offices and a billet were then built by the Admiralty and store houses for the explosives were built into bunkers.

Eight houses were then built in the village by the Admiralty under an agreement with the factory that they would take them over once the admiralty vacated the area.  This they duly did long after the war in about 1951.  The company then purchased these houses for approximately £1 000, truly an advantageous deal.

Durban, having the only port that could accommodate large ships, and a well-equipped graving dock, was the natural choice of the Royal Navy.

The security was such that no movement of transport was known to the residents of Umbogintwini.

The present Titan (Tioxide) offices were the Admiralty offices and the present transport section was the billet of the guards.

by Rev. Fr. C Byrne, OMI, about May 1961

As told by Mr Ned (Edward) Hughes

I received word in 1909 that I was to come to South Africa.  I had been working in the factory there, then I left the factory in Arklow in Ireland and was away for eight or nine months.  The manager’s brother was sent to find me to know if I would come out to South Africa, so I went to see him, the manager, and I agreed, and the conditions were – I was married at the time with one child – a free passage out for myself, my wife and child, £5 travelling expenses to Umbogintwini.  £5 was quite a lot at that time.

My wife’s name was Kathleen Denehy, she belonged to Corkril.  I belong to a village about three miles outside Arklow, a village called Culgrany, between Arklow and Gory.  My first child is called Jack – John, he alive, living in Jubilee Court, Clarence Road in Durban.  He was about six months old when I come out here.  We sailed on the “Norman”, Union Castle Line from Southampton.  We arrived out here on the 10 January 1910.  I didn’t come out with the first contingent, there was another lot come out before.  In the first contingent was John Joe Kelly, Pat O’Connell, Peter Dempsy, Simon Kenny, Jack O’Neill.

At first there was no Umbogintwini, we had to first of all to take a house in Isipingo, I, the wife and child lived in the house at the back of the hotel, and then we moved from there down to Amanzimtoti, and we took a house which was very, very dilapidated, in fact it was an old house full of rats, the furniture was terrible, real awful, in fact one night we were sitting in the house in the evening, when I come home from work, and the piano started playing, and there was nobody near it, and we thought the place was haunted.  It made me think, we couldn’t understand that, didn’t give it a thought it was rats.  I went over and lifted the top of the piano, and if one rat jumped out of it there was hundreds, they went up and down the piano and walls.  It was an old dilapidated shack.

Oh, the poor wife, battling along with the one child said, “Why did you bring us to this country?”  I said, “I don’t know, I said, I don’t know why I come myself, but we’re here now, we can’t go back, so then we’re going to remain here, I said it’s too far to swim, too far to walk, and I’ve no money, and I’ve signed a contract for two years, so it’s impossible to get back.”  I never went back, not until I finished in 1947, my wife never went back.  The children were Jack, the eldest, Gerald who was killed at Mersa Matru in the Second World War; he was in the 2^nd Anti Tank Regiment from Durban.  There’s Paula in Pinetown, Kathleen and Tessie, a Sister of Nazareth now, and there’s a boy Edward died.

I come out here to work on explosives.  After the first explosion here, there was a young fellow killed, Kelly, so they cabled home for six more men to come out here, but they didn’t state that there had been an explosion.  I had a two year contract, £3 a week, return passage at the end of two years if I wanted to go back.  By then I was married and settled down, with the family increasing and it was no good going back.  I had a bit of bad luck too, the one child, my namesake, he got poisoned drinking paraffin oil.  He was about 15 months old, and I come off a double shift working at the factory and he was in the room playing with me, the mother was in the kitchen making a cake or something, so I called the mother to take him away.  At that time there was no electric light in the houses.  The house was in Umbogintwini now, they had just started building houses, one of the first houses; so we had a tin of paraffin oil with a pump in it, and an old milk tin underneath it to catch the dregs and apparently this kid got in and was drinking from the tin and it went down his neck and he suffocated.  Oh, it was terrible; there was no doctor at that time, very primitive.

This would be about 1912 I should say, about two years in Amanzimtoti.

During the First World War I tried to join up, but on account of munition-making, they were making gun-cotton down here and nobody making munitions were allowed to join up, you’d be sent back, in fact, the manager told us if you went to the recruiting offices, you’d be sent back.

The voyage coming out was beyond the normal shipsy roll, bakin’ and twisting, but on the whole it was a fairly good passage.  I think it took about 21 days.  Of course I didn’t see much of my wife, she was a very bad sailor and then having Jack at six months old coming out too.

The first of the Irish colony in Umbogintwini was like a real little Ireland.  One coming after the other, and the houses got built, we got settled in the village and we had our own entertainments in the houses, little parties, and invited to your house this week and my house next week and something like that and it wasn’t bad on the whole.  On Christmas Day we got together talking at the old club, which was in a house, and stood talking like we always do.

The first Mass for the Irish was said down at Amanzimtoti, at a private house, Mr & Mrs Knott, a Dublin man, his wife was from Arklow, and the Priest was Father Tual.  We used to have Mass in our house and then someone else’s, change about.

As told by Mrs Margaret O’Brien

I came to South Africa from Arklow in 1912 on the “Dover Castle”.  My husband’s name was Myles and my maiden name was Margaret Heaney, we were both from Arklow village and married in Arklow church.

We arrived in South Africa on 29 September 1912.  I had one child, Kathleen; she’s living on the Bluff.  We lived in Durban for about four months, up on the Berea and my husband came to work by train every day until we came to live in Umbogintwini village in February.

On Christmas morning we all used to go down together to the Hall, the Dining Hall, and they had Mass in it.  It was down where the Hospital is now; we never had a doctor at all.  The Priest used to come from Pinetown by train.

I had eight children altogether, but there’s two dead.  There’s Kathleen, Peter, Michael, Roseanna, Ellie, John.

On Sundays we went down to the beach, and nearly every Sunday whole crowds of us and that was our day’s outing, we used to bring a basket along with the children, we used to have a lovely day – all day.  One Sunday we went down and a tidal wave came, we were sitting right up on the hill, and the tidal wave come and washed children, shoes, socks, clothes and everything else away, and Ellie was down along with the wave, and only Kathleen, the eldest girl fell on top of her, to keep her from going out.  She was only about three years old.

We used to go to Midnight Mass and then we used to come home and go into each others houses and have a little bit of cake and a cup of tea, that was our first Christmas morning.

As told by Mrs Deborah Lee

My maiden name was Deborah Keogh, I was born in Dublin but my mother was born in Arklow and I was married there in St Peter’s church on 5 July 1909.  I set sail for South Africa in November 1912 with Bill Lee, my husband’s brother.  Our first port of call was Cape Town, we stopped at Las Palmas and Madeira but we didn’t go ashore.  We went ashore in Cape Town and we went up on the mountains, all around Cape Town.

We lived in Durban for nine years, Berea Road, Canterbury Grove.  We moved from there to Moore Road, a double storey house on the corner, which is a great big building there now, today.  There were eight children in the family, six boys and twin girls.  The eldest boy’s name is Paddy; he’s the Irish man, born in Ireland.

We arrived in November 1912 in Durban, and I arrived in Umbogintwini in 1921.  St Patrick’s church in Umbogintwini was finished when we arrived.  While we were in Durban, Pop made a collection for the church and he collected about £60 and that went towards the church and then when we came out here, we bought the carpet, and he made that Christening Font, and there were a few other little things we donated when we came to the village.  When I come out here first the Priest was Fr. Verney but the one previous to that, he used to come on horseback, Father Tual, and was a wonderful old man.

There is one instance that really stands out in my mind, in regard to the church and our children, we had a wonderful Confirmation and First Communion, when I came to Umbogintwini, and Paddy my eldest son, he was confirmed in Durban but he was confirmed in Umbogintwini as well!  Anyway we had the Bishop out and he and all the little ones had their photographs taken, and then there was the old school there.  This was the private house where Mrs Olver is living now, that’s where we entertained, the nuns came out, about 20 sisters, priests and the Bishop.  The Bishop and Dr Sormony were entertained at Mr Taylor’s for breakfast.  He was the System Manager at the factory.  He was not Catholic but came into the church with the girl by the name of May Birtwhistle from home.  She was a friend of ours, a lovely girl, not satisfied with this country, she used to teach the children their catechism, was good with the children, very good.  She went back to Ireland; she wouldn’t stop here any longer.  She took Gerard home back with her and the other little feller, Tom, her two sons.

On Christmas Eve the band would come out.  Mr O’Neill, Ned Hughes, Pop, Bill Lee, Bill Roche were all in it.  The church was full, there wouldn’t be room, they’d be all outside as well, they would always make arrangements to go to one of the houses, not mine or the others, one of the bosses houses, and they’d stand outside, and the band would start up with Adeste Fideles, and if they were in bed they’d play and shout until they would come out onto the verandah, and they’d bring out the glasses and the whiskey and they’d stop there until three or four in the morning!

There was a very nice choir here at one time but it had died out.  They used to pick special choirs, one year it was written by Fr. De Gersigny and we had to go and learn that.  Mrs Hayden was the organist here for many years, that’s Mick’s second wife, her maiden name was Laredo, they were French.  She trained Kay O’Brien (Hughes) and Kay was over 30 years’ playing the organ.  Mrs Hayden played until she got very delicate and they moved out of Umbogintwini to the farm.  Some of the Irish people that were here were the Roches, the Hughes, O’Neills, O’Briens, Kellys, Woolahans, Conroys, Kavanaghs, Haydens, Knotts, Doyles, Cunningham, Dinny Kavanagh and Terry Kavanagh.  Pat O’Connor was chairman of the Church Committee; he was a storeman at the factory and was married to Mary Kavangh.

He was really good doing for the church.  He was one of the best, and he was the one that always called the meetings, and got on with the dances and call any meeting that was wanted, but his main point was to get all he could for nothing out of the factory.  He wouldn’t spend the money; he’d like to hand over the biggest sum to the priest of the parish.

As told by Mr Mick Hayden

I was born in Arklow on 19 September 1886 in River Lane and I went to school there in a convent.

I first received notification of my transfer to Kynochs Umbogintwini on about 1 May 1908 and I sailed from Ireland on 16 May 1908.  I sailed on the Munster, there were four ships at that time, the Ulster, Munster, Connaught and Leinster.  I sailed to South Africa on the Kenilworth Castle.  I came out with Mr & Mrs Campbell, there was just one man in front of us, about a fortnight, a chap by the name of Johnston, he was a foreman ganger.  He was born in Birmingham, an Englishman, so I was the first Irishman to arrive.  We arrived in Durban the first week in June.  My job was foreman plumber.

Umbogintwini was complete bush, surrounded by native location, the site had to be cleaned up and preparation had to be made to start building.  Building did not take place until about September 1908.  There was nothing there, the only thing was a small wood and iron shanty belonging to the Station Master.  There was a siding to serve the Africans.

The competition was very keen in those days, between Nobels Modderfontein and Somerset West in the Cape.  Manufacturing explosives in Ireland was too costly to transport to South Africa, and compete against these other two factories, so they decided to build a factory at Umbogintwini.

I spent about three months in Durban and after that the factory started to be constructed, I transferred to Isipingo and the first service I had there was in the Railway Hotel, lent to us by the proprietoress, Mrs Creed.  The bulk of the congregation were Englishmen from Wigness, but a sprinkle of one or two Irish.  The priest was Fr. Mondeu.

We remained in Isipingo for a time until the firm started to build cottages for the working people.  The first three cottages were let out to Mrs Roche, Mrs O’Connor and myself.  At that time we had to walk down to Amanzimtoti for service.  One priest I remember well, Father Tual.  Then when the Irish people started in Umbogintwini we had service given us in the eating house at the factory.  Then we started to talk about building a church, I was appointed treasurer and secretary, my job was to go around collecting from the Irish people in the factory and the village.

Pat O’Connor and Bill Roche were on the committee and there were fifteen families.  The average salary of the Irish working man at the factory per week was approximately £3.10.00 and they offered to give 5/- a week, which was very generous indeed.

We had got an acre of land from the firm, kindly given to us to build a church and a graveyard, but we hadn’t got sufficient money to clean up the grounds.  First we wanted a barrow, we managed to borrow pick and shovels, but at that time the firm was preparing a sports ground for the village, so there were a lot of barrows on the sports ground, so Mr Roche thought we could borrow one of those barrows during the night, I agreed.  I suggested that we take the barrow up the road, but he decided to take it through the bush.  So armed with a rope we went down to the sports ground, collared a barrow, took it through the bush through roots of trees, brambles and everything else, and I can assure you we lost more blood and sweat over that barrow.

Well, we had the barrow alright, and we cleaned the grounds.  Meantime I’m collecting in the factory and in the course of my factory duties I had to attend to the office every morning at 9 a.m. to interview the System Works Manager, Mr Taylor.  One day he said, “Mick, I believe you’re going to build a church in Umbogintwini.  What are the prospects?”  “Not too bad Mr Taylor, I’m going around collecting from the men in the factory, I’m getting very generous contributions.”  He said, “Well, what security could you give me if I advanced the money to you?”  “Nothing but the flesh and blood of the Irish crowd, that’s all I can give you.  They’re not paid very well, takes them all their time to live, but they are contributing 5/- weekly.  If that is any value to you, well you can give us the money.  Mr Taylor, why are you so interested in building a Catholic Church?”  “Well, I’m courting an Irish girl in Arklow and I want to marry her, and I want a nice little church built for her by the time she comes to Africa, if she is to be my wife.”

I said, “Mr Taylor, don’t you think you are risking a lot, there are no Catholics in Umbogintwini except the Irish crowd, and they are all of poor working class, you are amongst the staff and they naturally will look down upon you if you contribute that money.”  He said, “I’m going to do it.  I have no religion, I may have had one, but I’m not even a bush Baptist, and I want to become a Catholic with my wife.”  He gave us the money and we arranged with a contractor for the sum of about £1800.  He advanced us the money in full.  We worked hard and repaid him in 18 months from the time we borrowed the money.  Mr Taylor’s fiancée was Miss Birtwhistle, they were married in Arklow then came to live in Umbogintwini where she taught catechism.

Contractors got on with the job very quickly and were making a nice job of it, but the guttering and everything surrounding the church was not in the contract and I was the only mechanic on the Irish side, but I had about eight Scotsmen working with me and I asked them if they would give me an afternoon on a Saturday to complete the guttering, water downpipes, etc. and they agreed.  So they all turned out in a body and did a thoroughly good job of this, and refused to take any payment.

Well, the church was completed, we were having service, quite comfortable, we organised a choir, my wife as the organist, and Dr Sormany as instructor, but one thing we did lack was a bell.  There was a real nice bell on the sports ground, only used once every year, so Roche, he was in a sentimental mood, thought we should have a bell, I agreed.  So we went down to the sports ground and collected the bell and took it to the church.  The following Sunday morning the bell rang.  Amongst our congregation was a Mrs King, married to a Scots Presbyterian, who was our Chief Engineer at the factory.  He brought Mrs King to church.  He saw and heard the bell and said, “Mick, that’s a nice bell you’ve got there.”  I said, “Yes.”  He said, “It’s got a nice tone.”  “I agree with you.”  “Where did you get it from?”  I said, “We had it in pawn ever since we arrived in the country, we’ve just redeemed it now.”  He knowing perfectly well where the bell came from however.  We had the bell for a year and then the day of the annual sports, we returned it.

Now in the course of going round collecting, there was an old Irishman by the name of Nobby Clark, who spent every penny he got on Friday afternoon on Friday night.  I thought there was no use in going to Nobby, he will have nothing on Saturday morning, but this Saturday morning I felt someone tapping my shoulder.  I looked round and there was Nobby Clark.  He said, “I’m surprised and disgusted, I believe you are going around collecting money for to build the church and you never come near me.”  “But,” I said, “Nobby, I didn’t think you would have anything to give on a Saturday morning, in fact you are always borrowing.  He said, “Here’s 10/- for you now, and come back every Saturday morning.”

A little later on I met the System Manager, Mr Blewitt, who was an Englishman and I assume an Anglican.  He said, “I believe you’re going to build a church in Umbogintwini?”  “Yes we are.”  “And what prospects have you?”  “Very good indeed.”  He said, “Well, here’s 10/- towards it.”  I said, “But Mr Blewitt you’re not a Catholic.”  He said, “No, I’ve got a good friend in Fr Verney and this is my first subscription to it.”  I went further on an met the Anglican person who was at the head of the Anglican church at the time and he passed a funny remark, “I don’t know what’s wrong with Mr Blewett, I can get no help whatsoever for our church from him.”  I said, “I’m surprised, I have just received 10/- from him for the Catholic Church!”

The church was built, we wanted an organ and we wanted a few statues.  Mr Taylor kindly presented us with the organ and incidentally I presented the chair for the organist.  Mr Taylor went home to be married and he brought two nice statues, one for himself and one for me, St Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

To pay off the money we owed Mr Taylor, we organised jumble sales in the compound and went around collecting everything we could from the village people.  I loaned an ox wagon from the firm and brought it down to the compound, and amongst the lot was a box from the factory.  It was given to me from the factory leaving Ireland, with several broadleaved shamrocks on it.  Well, I haggled with the natives and sold everything but the box.  I looked at this and wondered whether to part with it, thought it’s for a good cause, I will.  I got exactly a pound for the box and thank goodness the money was paid and the church was quite free and for years we had a lovely church there and we had some lovely Fathers there.

Besides the jumble sales we had bazaars and dances.  We had joint bazaars with the Anglicans, the Anglicans supported us very very well indeed, they gave us all the help possible and the funds were equally divided between the two bodies.  The income from the first jumble sale in the location was £25, and from the bazaars between £7 and £12, they were held about every three months.  The total sum raised came to something like £300, one sixth of the whole cost of the church.  The Umbogintwini people are still famous for their generosity.

We collected £5 for every St Patrick’s Dance we had.  It cost us nothing to run because the ladies of the village produced all the refreshments and whatever we gained there was a nett profit.  The dance was first held the year the church opened.  The church was blessed by Bishop de Lalle and the ceremony was also attended by two young Irish priests.  I remember meeting them when we were examining the Foundation Stone.

My first wife’s name was Frances Manifold, Fanny.  I was courting her in Arklow about seven years before I left and she could not live without me and all, so she came out to South Africa as a friend or servant of one of the managers and we got married here.  But we were only married about nine months when we had an explosion and the shock killed her.  Eleven people were killed in that explosion, including one Irishman, Mick Kelly.

The Irishmen who formed the first group were Mr and Mrs Campbell, Johnson and myself.  The second group were Paddy Cunningham, Pat O’Connor, Jack O’Neill, Charley Travers, Mick Kelly, John Joe Kelly, Dick Knott and Mrs Knott, Myles O’Brien, Dinny J Kavanagh and Paddy Kavanagh, Charley Gilbert as near as I can remember, but there were others who did not come from Ireland but came from England.

We heard that there was a famous Irish priest in Durban giving a mission by the name of Fr. Hayes and we thought we would like him to come out to Umbogintwini.  We went in and interviewed Fr. O’Donnell who was then parish priest of Durban.  He said that Fr. Hayes was too tired and could not undertake a journey like that so we pushed our way beyond Father and went and interviewed Fr. Hayes.  He definitely was a tired man but we begged him, persuaded him to come to Umbogintwini.  He came, he gave us a lovely mission and got so fond of Umbogintwini that he did not want to leave it.

Amongst our supposed congregation was a man by the name of McLaughlin.  McLaughlin went nowhere; he always professed to be a bush Baptist.  Fr. Hayes heard of him and went and saw him.  McLaughlin promised him faithfully that he would attend service that night and go to confession and have communion the following morning.  McLaughlin never turned up.  Well that night Fr. Hayes gave us a sermon but before he did he made a remark, “There is a man amongst you crowd by the name of McLaughlin, who promised me faithfully that he would come to church to confession and communion.  He has not done so.  I want you to punish McLaughlin the same way as I would punish Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of England, give him the whip!”  Now Fr. Sormony was on the side altar, he kept pulling Fr. Hayes coat to remind him that McLaughlin was in the church.  “All the better, he hears me now he’ll come to his senses.”

The following morning Fr. Hayes and Fr. Sormony was out for a walk, they met McLaughlin.  “Why did you not fulfil your promise?”  “I’m sorry Father.”  “Will you come tonight?”  “I will Father.”  “Come to confession and communion?”   “I will Father.”  McLaughlin was there that night and confession and communion the following morning!  The mission was a terrific success and Fr. Hayes felt quite at home with the crowd, it reminded him of home and we had a job to get him to leave.  In fact we were compelled to say, “Father, if you don’t go we will never be able to welcome you back.”

My second wife’s name was Noël Laredo, she came from Tasmania, Australia.  She was three quarters Irish extraction and one quarter Spanish.

When I arrived in Umbogintwini there was nothing but bush, in fact there was a native location, and we had to start cleaning up to prepare for the buildings being erected, we had to work very hard to get this in a fit condition to erect the factory.  Eventually we got going but before, we had to apply to England for a crowd of leadburners to build our sulphuric acid plant.  About 50 men came out from England, from a place called Wigness, at least 60% of them were of Irish extraction and fairly good Catholics.  There was Jack Townsey, Jack Rider, Tommy Duffy, Bob Jones, Bill Handly.

The first manager of the new factory was Mr Udal.  He was an Englishman who really came from Arklow to start the factory at Umbogintwini.  He was a manager in Arklow and where there he met me on the quay-side with my father and he seemed to take a liking to me and he asked my father if he would allow me to go as an apprentice to him.  My father definitely agreed because he could get very little good of me going to sea, so he thought I would probably settle down in a permanent job.  Eventually we agreed on conditions and I was taken before a magistrate and bound for seven years under the management of Mr Udal with the firm Kynoch Limited, which was then well established in Arklow.  Well there was a foreman there by the name of Steward, a north of England man, who also took a liking to me.  He was about to leave Arklow when I had just about finished two years of apprenticeship, he asked me if I would go to England with him.  Well, I agreed, unknowing to my people.  He went to a place called Stonemarket in England and after he’d settled down there he wrote to me to come there with him, but my brother, who was then foreman at Arklow, interfered, called my father and mother together and they decided that I should not go, but I still insisted that I wanted to go.  Well, I was taken before Mr Udal, and I was definitely told that I had signed an agreement with him, that if I did break the contract they could put me in prison, so I had to settle down and complete my apprenticeship of seven years.

Three months before my apprenticeship was up I had definitely made up my mind to go to America where all friends were and I set about saving some money for the trip.  I worked night and day to collect £50.  in the meantime Mr Udal had disappeared, we did not know where he had got to, but somehow or other, the System Manager, Mr Hoyle, a Yorkshire man, heard that I was preparing to go to America and he interviewed me, said I was a young fool to attempt to leave the factory.

I told him, “Well, I’ve learned all there was to be learned at Arklow, and I want to seek fresh fields of adventure, so I thought America would be the best place to go to.”  He said, “No, don’t do anything rash.  Mr Udal has got something in his mind for you.”  I said, “My apprenticeship will be finished the end of June, and unless you tell me what Mr Udal wants for me, I’m definitely preparing to go.”  He said, “No, Mr Udal will be here next month, that be 1^st May.”  So Mr Udal came eventually, back to Arklow, and he sent for me.  He told me he wanted me to go to South Africa, a place called Umbogintwini on the South Coast.  Well, I asked him what the country was like and the conditions.  He said, “Well, you can get a suit of clothing there for 15/-, that’s very cheap.”  We were paying something like £3 to £4.10.- here for a suit of clothes.  He wanted me to take charge of the construction work at Umbogintwini, and I though I was rather young because I was only then 21.  He said, “Well, it’s for a repeat of what is in Arklow, and you know exactly what has to be done there, seeing you have served seven years apprenticeship here, and you have supervised and did a certain amount of construction in Arklow which will be the same as what will take place in Umbogintwini. I definitely refused.  I thought I was too young; I wanted to see the country first, to see the people to see I liked them before I would settle down.  We eventually agreed that I would be in his hands for six months, and he would employ a much older man than I to take charge of the construction, so I came to Umbogintwini.

When I went to look for clothing, I found that instead of paying 15/- for a suit, I had to pay £4.10.-.  The suit of clothes that he referred to was cotton duck, really what the natives used in kitchen work!

However, I was still leaning, pretending to be quite ignorant, getting their views, and the idea of the work from those Wigness men from England, and it was rather a hard job keeping my temper, but eventually I decided that instead of going to the Tech, I would go to a boxer by the name of Barney Malone, who was a real good old professional man of Irish extraction.  I was with him for six months, being trained privately at night time.

In my work at the factory I got very little free time, we knocked off at 5 o’clock and we had from 5 o’clock until 7 the following morning, that was the only time we got off.

As far as I can remember there were 11 explosions in the early days.  The first took place shortly after we started the factory, a young man by the name of Mick Kelly from Arklow was the only casualty so far as the Irish crowd was concerned, certainly a few other Europeans and some natives.  That was the only time that I can remember that any of the Irish crowd was killed and I must say that it was not through any fault of his, or the fault of any of the Irish men that other explosions took place, they were all off-shift at the time, not once did an explosion take place while the Irishmen were on shift.

I heard about the explosion that wrecked Kynochs in Arklow in 1917 from home.  I spoke to one of the managers who came from Arklow to Africa here, a man by the name of O’Gorman.  I asked him if there was any truth in the explosion that took place, was through the cause of the Irish rebels, and he said definitely not, there’s worse people in the factory than the Irish rebels were, and I must say we had the same experience at Umbogintwini in 1914, when war broke out we were certainly sabotaged at Umbogintwini.  Our principal sulphuric acid plant was burned down.

The man who came after Mr Udal was Mr Helke, he really came to close the factory down.  The principal reason was that they were about to become amalgamated with Nobels, a Scottish firm under the chairmanship of Sir Harry McGowan, and also the prospect of becoming amalgamated with Somerset West.  Mr Helke came really to dismiss the best part of the employees and under instructions from overseas he recommended Mr Blewitt as manager.  At that time we ceased to manufacture explosives and we had just started manufacturing small sidelines, fertilizer certainly was coming to existence, but we had not managed to obtain the contracts for fertilizer at the time, so other small items had to be manufactured to keep the skeleton staff going.  The factory ceased to manufacture explosives in about 1924.  At the time that the church was built somebody said that there must have been close on 100 children from about 25 families.

We started playing hurling in the early days.  Bill Roche and myself started, and then we incorporated Pat O’Connor, Tom Kennedy, Ned Hughes and several others.  We’d quite some lively games and eventually they started a club in Durban and I must say we’d quite a lively time with the games played between the two clubs.  It was lovely to think that one could play the game that one had followed from childhood up, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.  I think the reason why it was given up was all the old hands got old, and were unable to follow the game, and the younger didn’t follow the game as it was too much like hard work, so it eventually disappeared and all those youngsters went to cricket and football.

As told by Mr Jack O’Neill

I first came to the South Coast of Natal on 28 November 1908.  I was about 28 I think.  I came from Main Street in Arklow, in the town itself.  There were 18 of us coming out on the ship, and two women, Mrs Roche and Mrs Knott.  When we first came to Umbogintwini we stayed at the Royal Hotel in Isipingo for a few nights, and then we went down to Amanzimtoti and then back to Isipingo.  There was no Umbogintwini then, no village, just bush.  We had to walk from Amanzimtoti to go on shift.  It was a long walk at night, midnight.  In those days the people were a bit civilized, there was no danger in walking out at night.  We ran the first charge of nitro glycerine here when it started.

Mr Taylor took the leading light in the building of the church.  He was wonderful, put all his heart and soul into the church, and his wife took a great interest in it.  He was a superintendent down there, a convert who married an Irish girl, Birtwhistle.  There were quite a few people living in Umbogintwini then, about 20 families, the majority of them Irish, the children went to St Josephs in Durban.  The church was begun in 1917 and finished in 1918.

I was married in 1915 at the Cathedral in Durban.  My wife’s name was Ruby Reynolds, we had five girls and three boys, we did lose two.  Six left.

As told by Mrs Kavanagh

My maiden name was Martha Mary Redmond.  I was married in Durban at the Emmanuel Cathedral by Fr. O’Donnell.  I arrived in South Africa on 5 March 1910, I came over quite alone, on the German Castle.  The trip took one month, we had a very nice time on board, plenty of fun and dances and when we arrived in Cape Town we went to see the sights at Cape Town and then we carried on up to Durban.

I was met by my fiancé then, I arrived on the 5^th and was married on the 6^th March and I came out to Umbogintwini on the 4.20 train.  My husband was very sick, he had been dad with dysentery and he was ill for about a fortnight.  His name was Dennis Joseph and he was from a place called Castletown, about 16 miles outside Arklow, I was born in Tinahask, in Arklow.

When we arrived in Umbogintwini I felt at sea there and I cried my eyes out for to get back home, yes, it was nothing but bush, the bush was right over our heads, it was terrible.  I remember there was some people at the back of us by the name of Whitfield, and a lot of people used to say to me about the snakes.  I said that I’ve been here a week or so, and I haven’t seen any snakes, so my husband said, “Well, the next one we hear about, we’ll let you see it.”  Well, anyway I heard a shot one morning and I ran in to him and said, “Somebody must have killed a snake,” and I went through the back door and saw Mr Whitfield, who was a patrol in the factory, and here he was coming down the road with a terrific big snake with a rope around its neck and a dog in its mouth, and he said, “There’s a snake for you now, now you’ve seen a snake.”  I said, “Well, I don’t want to see any more snakes.”  Oh, they were killing snakes every day, they were shooting them in the trees in the gardens and everywhere, but funny enough there was nobody bitten by one.  Yes, we had snakes galore in Umbogintwini, there was nothing more plentiful than snakes.

There were eight children in the family, James, the eldest, then came the twins, Stanley and Redmond, and then Willie, Eileen and Lorraine.  They’re all still alive, even the terrible twins!  Oh, I tell you, I had a real pantomime with them sometimes.

I remember the forming of the committee to build the church but I was busy with the youngsters being babies, you know.  There wasn’t much difference between them, they were all like steps of stairs, as they say, and they kept me busy, but I remember the committee and all they had to do with the church.  That was the first thing we thought of when we arrived out at South Africa, was a church, and we got the church going as soon as we could, and the priest used to come out on a motor bike and we used to have a service in the dining hall at the old club, down by the time office you know.

I remember one explosion particularly well.  I was on my way out here, when my ship arrived in Cape Town I heard more about this explosion, and when I arrived in Durban of course I heard all about it.  My husband told me that they had a very big explosion.  He had a house ready for me on my arrival, and as he hadn’t been too well, he shut up the house one afternoon and he went for a walk and at the railway station he heard a bang and he looked up and there was a house exploding in the sky, so he got a fright, the hooter went, and there was a lot of excitement, and he said the first thing he did was he went down to the factory to see what had happened.  Then he had closed up the house, thought he ought to go back to see what had happened to the house, and when he got back there was a paraffin oil lamp that had been hanging down in the middle of the dining room, and this had fallen down, the oil was all over the table cloth, all the delft in the kitchen was on the floor, the windows were broken and the place was in a proper mess.  However, we were lucky, any damage that was done to the houses, the company made it good, so that was my first experience of an explosion in Umbogintwini.

As you know the 5^th November is Guy Fawkes night.  Well in the day time I had gone to town and the twins had told me that they wanted coloured matches.  I said alright, and when I came back I had the coloured matches for them, but I said “You’re not to have those matches until the night, because it’s no use in you lighting them in the daylight.”  They said, “Oh Mammy, let us have them, we won’t light them until the night time.”  So of course, being a weak mother I let them have them, and I heard no more about the matches until late in the afternoon.  I heard that something had happened at the Club, there was a fire.  There was a kind of a shed there, a thatched shed where the golf club people kept their tools and machines for mowing the golf course.  So this golf course hut went up in flames.  Apparently the twins had gone into this place, being dark, and they wanted to see the coloured matches lit, and they must have lit them, they caught fire and up went the shed, and away went the twins.  Nobody could find the twins, and I don’t think to this day that they knew who set the place on fire.  Anyway they ran home and into bed and covered themselves up and I didn’t know anything about it for months afterwards and had I known then they would have got a darned good hiding.  Being boys, you know, they were always up to mischief.

I was taking the family down for a Sunday School picnic to Kelso beach.  The train was going 8 o’clock that morning and the night before I pressed the twins’ new little sailor suits and put them on the box beside their bed, for to be ready, for there was quite a few of them to be got ready in time.  When I went to call them in the morning, here they were in bed dressed in their sailor suits, and I had to get them up and press them again.  They had got up during the night so that they would be ready to get the train they got up and dressed themselves in their clothes, and went back to bed again and fell asleep.

As told by Mrs Roche

I first received word that I was coming to South Africa when Kynochs put a notice up calling for volunteers to go out to Africa, and as there were hundreds of applicants, they picked about 15 men and three women and we were one of them.  It took me a long time to make up my mind, but as Bill was going I went with him.  My mother and them wasn’t terribly pleased, because they thought it was a black man’s country an when they tried to put me off, not to go, wait till I see that he’s send messages and what kind of country it was, and if he was doing alright, and if it was possible to stand the climate.  The climate was the whole topic of conversation.  Anyhow, I went with him and I was jolly glad I had his help on board ship because I was sick from seasick, pregnancy and homesick.  I paid £18 for my fare and Kynochs gave us £5 to spend on the voyage out.

We were married in Ireland in the same church that my mother was married in, where I was christened in, by the same priest, Fr. Dumfrey in Arklow.  My father built the national school in Arklow and was very well known and his sons have taken his place there.  My maiden name was Ellen Mary Kavanagh.

We left Ireland the last couple of nights in October and arrived here on 22 November 1908.  My first baby was born in the bush without nurse or doctor seven months later.  This was in Amanzimtoti, there were about six houses there at that time but there was none in Umbogintwini, they were getting them ready quickly, and about another year I moved to Umbogintwini.  They had built the first six houses.  There was a few wood and iron houses before that belonged to Kynochs, one was for the compound manger and one was for the man who was running the dairy and another for a fitter.  We got the chance of buying that one for £60 and we didn’t take it, but after that Kynochs gave no more grants and land, they built the houses themselves so we went into one of the six that was built.

Holy Mass was said in a person’s dining room down there by the name of Hughes, near the Riversea Hotel, added on to and improved and when it was said in Mrs Knott’s dining room, another Irishwoman who came out with me, then we sometimes had it in Umbogintwini.  My child was christened in my own home by a little priest who lived on the Bluff, and he came over when we sent for him.  A priest used to ride from Mariannhill across country for to say Mass for us, on horseback.

My husband was one of the leading lights in trying to build the church, they formed a committee and about eight people who went on the committee consistently kept the collections up and went round every week.  The men were paid by the week, they got the collections from them and then Bishop de Lalle opened the little church for us.  My husband was the altar boy and sang in the choir.  He used to be secretary of the Catholic Church and Secretary of the Building Society and they presented him with a lovely silver cigarette case for services rendered.  He was chief cook and bottle washer up there one time!

A Mr Bates, the school teacher, helped such a lot, he was delighted to see a Catholic Church go up there.  He gave me £1.10.0 towards it one day, he was not our denomination.  He helped my husband lay bricks outside and lots of people such as Reverend Skelton who used to be a minister in Maritzburg, he never passed by without coming to see how the church was going on, and was delighted.

Every denomination helped, if there was a bazaar or anything, we all joined in and shared the takings, there was no bigotry amongst the people at that time.  A man called Brown from Umkomaas built the church; it was very cheap, about £600 at the time.

We loved it in the old days, the people were so united with each other and we had to make our own amusement and any occasion was good enough for a party, a Christening, wedding or birth, or anything there was a big party always.  Everybody had to tell a story or do something in the party, we had generally Mr Lee and Mr Kavanagh being master of ceremonies and they insisted on each person doing something.

We were very short of something to do in the beginning, so the men decided to ask permission to build a handball court, they had never heard the name of it out here, or seen it, but the crown in Kynochs gave them permission to have a court, and they helped them to build it, and they also, after a lot of urging, each person paid an initial subscription, they made six holes of a golf links, which we knew every blade of grass on before we finished with it.  That was the beginning of the Umbogintwini Golf Club and the beginning of some grand players.  The young Irish fellers excelled at golf, surprised people how well they could play.  But the handball court was a beautiful court, and then we had hurling.  There was lots of hurlers amongst the crowd what came out and they sent home to an aunt of mine who sent out the sticks and some 12 dozen half solid balls to play hurling with, and they called themselves “The Shamrocks” and a team started up in Durban in opposition to us called “The Exiles” and they was great hurling, and there was lots of accidents and split noses.  Mr Hughes had his nose split one day in Kynochs and had to be taken to hospital.  The people here couldn’t understand the wild Irish game, it is a game that if played to the rules there’d be no accidents.  If they have a spite against you they can bring it out in hurling alright.

I am very proud that my husband Bill picked the site that St Patricks is built on.  Kynochs gave him the plan of the ground here and he picked that site himself, up on top of the hill, but gradually the village crept up to it, but it was a nice quiet place.  Every St Patricks even if we didn’t make much, the company always contributed towards our dance funds, but the dance was a recognised event, of the South Coast with the generous refreshments, good music and good fun.  Everyone went to the St Patricks dance, it was a well-known dance all along the South Coast.

When we first came out we walked down to the beach to Amanzimtoti on Sundays, came back on the train for 6d.  There was no club at the time, club was built a couple of years after we were in the village.  There was no motor cars.  There was one motor car in Durban, when we landed there, and there was no trains out of Durban after 5 o’clock at night.  Kynochs built a big place down there like a sleeping quarters, and the men got off the train at 5 o’clock and went and got into bed and were called at 11.30 to go onto shift work at 12 o’clock.  That went on for years.  It was where the hospital is now, there was a big hall up there used as a dining hall, part of it in the day time and the men had lunches there, it was run by the people who had the boarding house in the village, Humphreys, and another man called Gordon ran it.  He was working in “B” house in the factory, and they put him in charge of this dining hall, a grand cook, and an old man, and that’s where we held our dances in the beginning, in that hall.  I happened to be one of the first who had a gramophone, and the young fellers in the village used to come and borrow my gramophone and borrow me too and take me down with the horn on one arm and the box under the other, and we had dances, and we all had to pull the fellers up, they were shy, but they wanted to dance, and that was our amusements down there.  We had concerts there, and one night we had such a laugh at the concert that a woman, actually the first woman in Umbogintwini, Mrs Weller, who has lately died, she laughed so much she went into hysterics, and we had to carry her out.  I forget what it was about.

After a little while there was a school built for us.  Before that they went with us to Isipingo on the train.  There was a friend of mine and another man hired their own teacher and they started with a room down there in the old hall, at Amanzimtoti, some children went down on the train there.  Most of them went to Durban, St Josephs.

At first in 1908 about 10 people came out, two or three weeks before me, then the next lot 15 came, 10 men and five women, some were sent back home with suspected TB and different things, and there was a depression at Kynochs and some of them were told to leave and they went home.  I know all that came out with me on the boat.  There was Mr & Mrs Knott, Mr & Mrs Metcalf, Mr Bill Murray, Harold White, Mr DJ Kavanagh, Mick Kelly, Paddy Kavanagh (Mick Kelly was blown up in our first explosion, my husband was in that explosion too, he was blown up and hurt on the hip), Mr McCull.

By W H Dodds, 17 December 1953

J Bower was the original Chief Chemist at the beginning of the factory but was only temporarily at Umbogintwini, having left his wife and family in England.  He was succeeded as Chief Chemist by W E Martin from Arklow.  Mr Bower came to this country again during the 1914-18 war to establish and take charge of the guncotton plant.  He was a most friendly and companionable person, and would have liked to live in this country permanently, but, unfortunately, the poor health of his wife, who was also a charming person, prevented him from doing so.  Mr Bower was, for many years, employed by the British Cellulose Company, at Derby.

Mr & Mrs W E Martin’s lawn tennis parties at their home in Belle Vue Road, Durban, soon became highly appreciated social events.  They were made the more eventful at times by their eldest son, Allen, who in his younger days was a striking example of an “enfant terrible”.  When he insisted on encroaching on the court during play, as frequently happened, many an apparently wild service or volley was, in reality, aimed at Allen.  A few years later he developed the charming personality he has today.

Mr Martin succeeded Mr Bower as Chief Chemist and was later promoted to the post of Explosives Works Manager.  After his retirement, he became for some years Consulting Analytical Chemist to a group of Natal collieries, and made his home at Kloof.

Thomas Arthur Warner, originally a surveyor, was one of the very first to be employed at the factory, in fact, before building operations began.  He came from Australia and was at Umbogintwini for many years, where he became the Native Labour Manager.  Eventually he left to become a sugarcane planter and later a member of the Union Government Land Board and a director of the Umfolosi Co-operative Sugar Planters’ Association.  He has now retired but is still extremely active for his age; he now lives at Umhloti Beach.  He had a charming wife and bevy of three handsome daughters who were of much social importance in Umbogintwini at a comparatively early period.

A Robinson was in Natal for only a short time during the construction of war-time extensions in 1915.  He was most ingenious and very well informed in all branches of engineering and was thus a great help at a difficult time.

On the first day of his arrival at Umbogintwini, he was accommodated at the Staff House and joined in the somewhat elaborate afternoon tea we used to have in those days after finishing work.  Later in the evening he was nowhere to be seen and at dinner time was found to have retired to his room and was fast asleep in bed; he was very surprised to be told that another meal was waiting.

F W Hinchley came to Umbogintwini as Secretary and, during the absence of Mr J P Udal, General Manager, in England during wartime; he deputised for the manager in certain duties and was Chairman of the local Management Committee of senior staff who decided the general policy for the factory.

He was a great practical joker which sometimes made him appear inconsiderate, although he was not so in reality.  He met with an unfortunate end by drowning on Amanzimtoti beach.

His wife once asked him to write for her the regular weekly letter home to her mother in Britain; he did so and stated in the letter that his wife was unable to write, having been severely bitten in the hand by a marauding monkey in the garden.  This was entirely without foundation but it took several months to clear up the matter in those days long before airmails.

W Ivan Taylor was a brilliant young man who came a year or so after the opening of the factory to introduce the Mannheim plant for making fuming sulphuric acid, and remained for some years as General Chemical Works Manager.

Mr and Mrs Taylor revisited Natal in 1953 for the first time since they left about 1921.  In the meantime, Mr Taylor had been employed in industrial research with the British Cellulose Co., at Derby until his recent retirement.  Like several others who were formerly on the staff at Umbogintwini, he continues, after his retirement, to do technical consulting work.

William Vanken Blewett was one of the part of four factory chemists who accompanied Mr J Bower on his journey from Southampton to Umbogintwini in November 1908, the others being G Firth, M A Troy and the writer.

Mr Blewett remainined for many years first as Chemical Works Chemist.  He succeeded Mr Taylor as Manager of the Chemical Works, and in 1922, after the departure of Mr Helcke, the successor to Mr Udal, became General Manager.

Later he was transferred to the London offices of the ICI Limited, and had a number of special technical missions, mainly connected with fertilizer propaganda, and later with insect control, in many parts of the world including Australia, China and many other countries.

Although retired from ICI Limited, Mr Blewett still spends his time in similar foreign tours for various technical interests.  His wife visited Durban and Umbogintwini again in 1953.

Clement Stanley Heaven was Chief Engineer for many years and was one of the first Europeans to be employed during the construction of the factory early in 1908.  He was one of a group of four members of the staff, who were joined at one period by the writer, who occupied one of the very few beach cottages that existed at Amanzimtoti in those days.  The others of the group were Soutter and Cheesman, draughtsman, and Hoffe, foreman of the Explosives Cartridging Department.

Mr Heaven was married twice, first to Miss A Troy, sister of one of the factory chemists, and secondly to Mrs Gordon, widow of the first medical officer at the factory.

Charles Scorer was for many years foreman of the sulphuric acid plant, an occupation calling for never-ending watchfulness over the continuous lead chamber process that was used in those days.

He was nicknamed by the native labourers “Beka-pesu” meaning “look upwards”.  This was not a reference to his earnest religious nature, but to the fact that he almost continually kept an eye on the exhaust pipe exit at the top of the sulphuric acid chamber, about 50 feet above the ground.  It was essential that the exhaust gases should betray no tinge of brown fumes, indicating a loss of nitrogen in the form of its oxides which were vital to the process; on the other hand, a white fog would indicate a loss of sulphuric acid.

Mr Scorer had three daughters, two of whom worked in the office; the elder Miss Dorrie Scorer, for 38½ years.  She was the first woman to be employed at the factory.

George Firth was one of the original party of chemists and factory operatives from Arklow to travel to Umbogintwini in October 1908, in the old “Kildonan Castle”.  He came originally from Birmingham, where he was employed with Messrs Albright and Wilson, manufacturers of phosphorus and its compounds.  He, thus, had excellent experience with dangerous materials before becoming acquainted with the even more potentially hazardous manufacture of nitro-glycerine.  He has a very fine personality, calm and self-possessed, and was never known to be excited, whatever the emergency.

When the company under new management began to attribute much more importance than previously to academic qualifications of members of the staff, Mr Firth gained the degree of B.Sc., solely as a result of spare time study and attending evening lectures in Durban.  This was a great achievement for one with the responsible, full-time duties of Chief Chemist and of mature age.  He is now retired and lives at Montclair, Durban.

Archibald Terry Scurr was not among the earliest members of the staff to arrive at Umbogintwini, but was transferred a year or two later from the factory at Kynochtown on the Thames marshes, to become one of the three shift chemists to take alternate periods in control of the continuous operation of the nitro-glycerine manufacturing plant and the mixing of explosives.

After the closing down of the manufacture of explosives at Umbogintwini, Mr Scurr was transferred for about 2½ years to the explosives factory at Modderfontein, after which he returned to Umbogintwini.

He has now retired and is living in Pietermaritzburg.  He is a very fine character of a somewhat retiring nature.  His son, Robin, is following his father’s profession, and is a chemist engaged in sulphuric acid manufacture for the extraction of uranium at some of the gold mines in the Transvaal.

M A Troy.  While the great majority of the factory operatives came originally from Arklow and were of Irish descent, Mr Troy was one of the few of the supervisory staff to be also of Irish birth and descent.  He was one of the early arrivals at Umbogintwini and brought with him his sister, Miss A Troy.

Mr Troy was one of the shift chemists in charge of the nitro-glycerine plant, having become thoroughly experienced in that work at Arklow.  Besides his excellent technical and personal qualities, he had the gift of imagination and considerable literary talent.  Unfortunately his health was poor and he died at a comparatively early age.

Edgar Charles Rees was another outstanding personality.  He came from Birmingham University, were he was the private assistant of Professor Frankland, after the Umbogintwini factory had been opened a few years.

One of his first assignments was to determine experimentally the optimum composition of the residual acid resulting from the manufacture of nitro-glycerine, the so-called “waste” acid, although it was by no means wasted.  This acid consisted mainly of a mixture of sulphuric acid, nitric acid, water and a certain amount of dissolved nitro-glycerine.  The principal aim was, of course, to reduce the loss of nitro-glycerine in this way to a minimum by discovering the composition of the acids and water mixture that had the least solubility for nitro-glycerine.  This was successfully determined by Mr Rees; the information had important economic results by indicating the most profitable composition of the original mixed sulphuric and nitric acid for nitrating glycerine, and the best proportion of this mixture of acids per unit of glycerine.

However, Mr Rees did not have the opportunity to continue chemical research for which he had very definite talents.  He was transferred to the chemical works where he became Assistant Manager and, after the departure of Mr Blewett, he succeeded him as General Works Manager.

Later, Mr Rees was transferred to the General Managership of the Somerset West Factory of the African Explosives and Chemical Industries, a position he occupied until his retirement a year or two ago.  During this period of his career he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Science of the University of South Africa and became a director of African Explosives and Chemical Industries Limited.

Among his varied social talents, he is a very fine baritone singer.  Dr and Mrs Rees still reside near Somerset West, Strand.

George Ingham is a most interesting character.  He was appointed Chemist in the main analytical laboratory at Umbogintwini during the 1914-18 war, having recently retired as a science master at an Orange Free State secondary school.  He served the remainder of the war period and a few years later, when he retired for the second time.

During the Second World War he was yet again appointed to the factory staff and again did valuable service in the chemical laboratory, and, as before, did a few additional years of service after the war until he retired for the third time.

He must now be in his eighties, but he is still active and recently survived, without permanent injury, a severe motor car accident near Pietermaritzburg.

Mr Ingham did a good deal of chemical research at one time on the quantity of ammonia in the atmosphere and its effect on the economy of plant nutrition.

W H Dodds, the compiler of these memoranda, was one of the original party of chemists and operatives to travel from Arklow to Umbogintwini in October 1908.  He hailed originally from Manchester but had been for over two years an explosives chemist at the Arklow factory.  He was a nitro-glycerine factory shift chemist for the first few years at Umbogintwini, but after the promotion of Mr W E Martin from Chief Chemist to Explosives Works Manger, Mr Dodds occupied the vacancy thus created.

For many years he was secretary of the Umbogintwini lawn tennis club, and at one time occupied one of the senior staff houses jointly with another bachelor, Mr W Ivan Taylor, until the marriage of the latter.

After the closing down of the explosives factory in 1921 and in view of the general uncertain outlook at Umbogintwini about that time, Mr Dodds decided to resign and to visit the USA.  He first took a course in sugar technology at Louisiana State University and them, for a year or two, became what was known at that time as a “sugar tramp”; that is to say, he took on various temporary seasonal employment on sugar estates, factories and experiment stations in Louisiana, Honduras (Central America) and Cuba (West Indies), to gain experience in various phases of cane sugar production.

He returned to South Africa in 1924 to organise and direct on behalf of the South African Sugar Association a sugar experiment station established during the following year at Mount Edgecombe on the Natal North Coast.  He remained there as a director until his retirement in 1951.

He married Miss E A King, formerly a teacher at the Umbogintwini school.

In 1941 he was awarded at Pietermaritzburg the honorary degree of Dr. Sc., of the University of South Africa.  Dr and Mrs Dodds now live at Durban North.

Messrs A Gregory, W W Southwood, William Charles Weller and H Williams.  These are the names of four youths who were chemical laboratory assistants during the early days of the factory at Umbogintwini from about 1915.  None of them had the advantage of much higher education between school-leaving age and the time they took employment, but they are worthy of note because of their remarkably successful careers, with the exception of W Weller who was handicapped by poor health and died at a comparatively early age.

When evening courses in science were established at the Natal Technical College they all enthusiastically attended them.

The Chief Chemist at the factory at that time, who happened to be the writer, was also evening lecturer and demonstrated in organic chemistry at the Technical College, and was much impressed with the keenness and capability for study of these youngsters.  Incidentally, he found it to be part of his duty, as tutor to these students, to report regularly and formally on their progress to himself, as their immediate employer.

A Gregory is the only one still at Umbogintwini, where he is now Chief Superintendent of the Acids Section.  He gained the degree of B.Sc., and, a few years ago, he was elected Chairman of the Natal branch of the South African Chemical Institute.

W W Southwood left to join the Royal Baking Powder Co., at Cape Town, where he eventually became General Manager and gained the degree of D.Sc.

H Williams left first to become a chemist at a sugar factory, and later joined the Epic Oil Mills Limited in Johannesburg, now the second largest manufacturer of edible oils in the Union.  He also became General Manager of the company in due course.

Patrick James Cunningham was one of the early immigrants from Arklow.  He was first employed on the nitric acid plant, where he eventually became foreman.  He was the last of the original European personnel at the beginning of the factory to retire, which he did two or three years ago.  He was allowed to remain in employment somewhat beyond the regulation age for his retirement, so that he could establish a record of 50 years’ continuous service with the company.  This implies that he must have begun work at about the beginning of the century at Arklow at the age of 12 or 13.

Other employees of long standing.  The only employee of any race was employed at the beginning of the factory and is still working there is Murti, an Indian office assistant.  Rambrun, an Indian clerk, who recently retired, had also been working continuously since the beginning of the factory.

W Weller, foreman of the nitro-glycerine factory, was in several ways a typical Cockney.  He had a strong sense of humour and plenty of shrewd and good-natured common sense.  He had learned his job very thoroughly and capably at Kynochtown, where he began work in 1894.  He was at his best in an emergency such as a factory explosion, when he was particularly cool, active and resourceful.

He had a son and two daughters also working at the factory.

Factory Operatives.  A very good type of man had been selected, mainly from Arklow, especially for explosives work, and it was a pleasure to work with them.

Among these were R Knott, W Roche, J Smith, W Murray, D J Kavanagh, T Kavanagh, M O’Brien, E Hughes, M O’Connor, P O’Reilly, J McCall, H White, J O’Neill, E Doyle and a number of others.

M A Lee did not come direct from Arklow, although he was from there originally.  He was a seaman and on one of his voyages the ship called at Durban where he found at Umbogintwini a colony of his friends and compatriots from Arklow.  He was induced to give up a seafaring life and becme an explosives operator for many years.  He is now retired and is living at Umbogintwini.

The following photographs are extra pictures accumulated for the Part 1 section using the same references except for the stated new references.

1963 Standard 3 Reference - Ken Grubb collection

1967 Standard 5 Reference - Stephen Inggs Collection

Reference - Archaic Consulting: Architectural and Historical Impact Assessment of two unidentified concrete bunkers on the Kynoch Explosives Factory site, Umbogintwini; June 2011

Reference - Rotary Christmas at The Jubilee Hall