The following information was kindly provided by Selwyn Davidowitz, a Cape Town tour guide, whose love of our beautiful city has inspired many visitors and locals alike.

Contact Selwyn here...

- The Mother City
- Tollgates in Cape Town
- A Cape Town living Welcome
- Cape Town rules of the road
- Restitution of Conjugal rights
- Table Mountain in fact and fiction
- Cabs in Cape Town
- The Cape Town Noon Gun
- The renaming of Devil’s Peak
- St. Stephens Church
- Seating for Cape Town's working ladies
- Green Point Common - Cape Town
- Cape Town’s pipe track
- Interesting Table Mountain facts
- The Penguin Colony at Boulders, Simonstown

The Mother City

Cape Town is also known by South Africans as the Mother City. As every one of us constantly use the phrase, I wonder how many South Africans actually know where the phrase comes from? Well here is the answer.

In the 1930s some unknown party wrote to the local Cape Town newspaper claiming that Cape Town was the only city in South Africa that could justly call itself a metropolis. The public took to this description and because the word metropolis is derived from the Greek derivation of meter or metros meaning mother and polis meaning city, the nickname of "mother city" was born. Hence today we know our wonderful city as being "the mother city". 

Even more fascinating is the fact that few South Africans or Capetonians know that there was a time when Cape Town was known as "Cape Grab". This was because of the grabbing practices of certain innkeepers in the old days in charging exorbitantly for board and lodging to sailors who passed by the Cape on their way to the East.

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Tollgates in Cape Town

Did you know that even though we have no tollgates in Cape Town today [for how long we could ask! )-;)] there was a time when Cape Town did have tollgates.

At the beginning of the century there was a tollgate at the junction of Sir Lowry Road, Victoria Rd and Searle Street. Till today the building on this corner still holds the name Tollgate (City Tramways).

What is interesting and not well known is that at one stage there actually were two tollgates leading into Cape Town. The first was the aforementioned and then there also was a tollgate for a short period at the end of Newmarket Street.

The money at the tollgates was collected by a tollgate master who would sit at the gate with a small receptacle tied to the end of a rod into which the travelling citizen dropped the enforced toll.

Seems as even in those days municipal councils milked any money-cow that was available to them to fill city coffers, however the shrewd folk of Cape Town bypassed the tollgates and used to travel on the old Beach Road closer to the sea resulting in the fact that the tollgates eventually got closed down.

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A Cape Town living WELCOME

In 1947 The British Royal family visited Cape Town, South Africa. The joint school board in Cape Town decided that it wanted to do something special to commemorate the event and the idea of a "living welcome" was decided on.

The pupils or Ellerslie, Sea Point Boys High and Junior, Ellerton, Kings Road Primary and Camps Bay Primary were all put through their paces for the living welcome.

Rehearsals took place on the Sea Point Junior School lawns. A piper cub airplane was flown by a local enthusiast during rehearsals so as to check that all looked right for the event.

A site on Signal Hill was chosen. Footpaths were cut into the bushes of Signal Hill spelling the word WELCOME. The letters were 100ft long.

On 17 February 1947 2000 schoolchildren, all dressed in white, lined out the marked letters with the girls forming the letters W E L and the boys forming the balance C O M E.

The family arrived in a battleship by the name of Vanguard. On siting the "living WELCOME" a signal was given from the ship that it had seen the WELCOME sign from far and this caused all the children to thunderously cheer. The first contact by the people of Cape Town had been made with  the Royal family. Up until the late 50's the carved paths of the words WELCOME could still be seen on Signal Hill, but alas today they are no more to be seen. The people of Cape Town however have never lost the wonderful sense of welcome that they have always had for foreign visitors to their shores.

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Cape Town rules of the road

In 1906, the now demolished Baptist Church in Wale Street Cape Town
was used as a law-court. Somebody who would not have cared to remember
this was a certain Mr.Rorich.  The reason for this was because he was
the first person to be found speeding in a city street in Cape Town.
He was travelling at a speed of 12 miles per hour in an 8 mile per hour
zone. For the offence he was fine 2 Pounds which was a heck of a lot of
money in those days.

This case is clearly documented however in my opinion the question remains as
to how the speed of 12 mph was correctly determined?

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Restitution of Conjugal rights

One of the favourite topics over which people shake their heads in disapproval is the ease with which divorce may be obtained in the modern world. Other sigh for the good old days! it is doubtful whether Catharine Backers would agree with them.

Life could be distinctly unpleasant for a woman in the 17th  Century if she happened to be married to a man who was a bully! at the least excuse he could beat her black and blue, and none could gainsay him, for the husband was the guardian of his wife, and was vested with the power to "correct" her.

To such a man was Catharine Backers married - Louwrens Pietersz, a free burgher of the Cape, a solid citizen, and a wife-beater. There was nobody to whom Catharine could turn, for her husband' s actions were perfectly legal. In a more settled community perhaps the force of public opinion might have stayed his hand, but the Cape in 1694 was a frontier on which the finer points of civilisation were noticeable by their absence. In such circumstances sometimes a wife run away and returned to her family; but even this was denied to Catherine, for it was impossible to reach Holland without a long and expensive sea voyage. Apart from which she had to have permission to leave the Cape.

Despite this, Catherine resolved to run away at the first opportunity. To do this, she required an accomplice, whom she found in the person of Andries Magnisse of Amsterdam, second mate aboard the Indiaman, Riderschap van Holland. The Ridderschap was on its way to the east, and spent nearly four weeks in Table Bay laying in supplies and waiting for her sick to recover. A couple of days before she was due to sail, Andries smuggled Catherine aboard the ship, dressed as a man. Whether Andries Magnisse was aware of it or not, Catherine arrived aboard the vessel quite well provided, for she had plundered her husband' s cash box, and substituted stones for the gold and silver she took. Perhaps she felt she was reclaiming her dowry; at all events she took the cash. This probably was a bigger blow to her husband than the disappearance of his wife, though the loss of an unpaid servant must have grieved him. The alarm was raised, and suspicion at once centred on the 2 ships in the bay.

There had been cases of women successfully working their way as men aboard the Company' s ships, but Catherine was too much of a woman to pass muster. Next day she and Andries Magnisse were arrested and haled ashore to be lodged in the Castle.
At her trial, Catherine told the full story of her hardships and her attempt to escape them; it was of little avail. She was found guilty, sentenced to be whipped in public, and to serve 15 years in a women's house of correction. The mate was sentenced to 15 years hard labour.

As it turned out, the Court had saved Catherine' life, for the Ridderschap disappeared on its way to Batavia. No doubt Catherine serving her 15 years in the house of correction was suitably grateful....

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Table Mountain in fact and fiction

Table Mountain figures in 2 of the world' s best known tall stories. One of these was known as the "Great Moon Hoax". A telescope on TM, through which "the inhabitants of the moon" could be seen, was described in a series of newspaper articles published in the US in 1835. Thousands of people believed the story told by an imaginative writer, Richard Adams Lock, in the New York Daily Sun. The journal claimed that it was quoting the startling account of the "moon people" from an Edinburgh science journal. It was stated that the journal had reported that Sir John Herschel, the noted astronomer, had viewed the moon through a new type of telescope which had been erected on TM. The telescope' s mirror was said to be 24 feet in diameter. Through this instrument the most amazing discoveries had been made. The people of the moon were bat-men and bat-women, whose habits were described. There were also bison-like animals which roamed the grassy moon plains.  The account of course, had no substance in fact. Although the hoax was exposed many gullible people bought reprints of the articles.

Table Mountain also figures in the adventures of another bogus moon visitor. He was the celebrated Baron Munchhausen, past master in the art of fabricating tall stories. His fantastic travels to various places were first distributed in 1785. He claimed he flattened the great rock behind Cape Town, which was subsequently came to be called Table Mountain. He says that he drove a chariot that had 10 000 springs and which was drawn by a team of bulls. He drove too close to the celebrated rock pile and the wheels slivered it in a horizontal direction, flattening it and causing it to look like a table....

Reference: "I remember Cape Town" by George Manuel.

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Cabs in Cape Town

Cape Town's main street, namely Adderley street, used to have many Hansom cabs lining its central pathway right up to the mid 1950's.These Hansom cabs came to Cape Town  in 1849 after being imported by Sir Robert Stanford. The cab was drawn by a single horse and the original patent on these taxis of the 19th century was registered to Joseph Aloysius Hansom and was named “Mr.Hansom’s patent safety cab” They were originally introduced onto the streets of London in 1834.

Both the fare as well as the driver used to sit on the back axle. The question could be asked as to why the driver of the cab had to sit at the back of the cab and not in the front so as to have better control over the horse. It is said that the fare would always complain if this was the case in that the drivers posterior would be seen by the fare during the journey. This was summarized by the line The superior in the interior should not see the posterior of the inferior on the exterior.”

The above however was not the main reason for the driver standing at the back. Hansom cabs had their door on the rear. This led to large scale hitching onto the cab for a free ride and the cad was designed in such a way that the driver could see his passengers get in & out thus preventing this thievery from taking place.

Sadly the Hansom cab is no more to be seen in Cape Town.

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The Cape Town Noon Gun

For those who don’t know it there is a noon day gun that gets fired daily, excepting on Sundays, from Signal Hill in Cape Town to mark the time of 12 noon for the citizens of Cape Town. There is one exception to this rule regarding the firing of the gun on a Sunday and that is when the Gun Run, which is an annual half marathon, takes place in the city. The race ends at 12 noon and the gun gets fired on that day signaling to those that have not crossed the finish line by the time of its booming that they have not completed the race in the pre-requisite qualifying time.

The gun booming also had another part to play in Cape Town's history when during the 2nd world war when the it was fired all the citizens of Cape Town would stop what they were doing for a 2 minute period of silence so as to reflect on those who had died during the war.

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The renaming of Devil’s Peak

There was a time when certain Capetonians were unhappy with the naming of Devils Peak, which for those who have never seen this mountain, is the peak that flanks our famed Table Mountain.

In 1957 a Roman Catholic minister, Rev.E Klimeck, launched a campaign to have the mountain renamed to Christus Peak. He promoted his cause by saying that the name would be acceptable to all in both official languages of the time, namely English & Afrikaans. The whole campaign was launched in the press and climaxed when the reverend and his followers climbed Devils Peak while chanting prayers along the way. When the summit was reached a cross was planted to try an enforce the new name. Nothing came from the effort and till today Capetonians still know the mountain by the name it originally got namely Devil’s Peak.

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St. Stephens Church

We have a church in Cape Town which is also reputed to have been the first theatre in South Africa called St.Stephen's church. This church stands on Riebeek Square. There are many stories of the past to be told about this church but one that has always been a delightful one in my opinion is that it is told that the cellar of the church used to be hired out in days of old. One of the tenants used to be a wine merchant who kept his liquor there. One day somebody painted the following graffiti on the walls of the church:

"There's a spirit above and a spirit below,
The spirit above is the spirit of love,
The spirit below is the spirit of woe,
The spirit above is the spirit divine,
The spirit below is the spirit of wine."

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Seating for Cape Town's working ladies

In the late 19th century the general public started to worry about the females who used to work in shops as assistants in that they spent many hours standing behind shop counters. Letters were written to the local newspapers to highlight the problem.

The result was that in 1899 a law was passed where every owner of a shop had to provide seating accommodation for his female staff. The law stated that one chair had to be provided for every three members of the staff and that these chairs could be used by assistants at all reasonable times.

I wonder whether this law is still on our statute books today and what a shop owner of today might do if this law was enforced against him/her today ??  (-:)

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Green Point Common - Cape Town

Green Point Common has fulfilled many functions in the city of Cape Town. There was a time when the Common was a lake on which sailboats used to sail. The Common was also the first racecourse in South Africa. The piece of land also served as a military camp during the Anglo Boer War.

After World War 1 the Common was used as a landing strip for airplanes owned by the Solomon's brothers who were pioneer aviators in South Africa.

In 1930 the area was used by cows to graze on.

The stadium that eventually got built on the Common was once staged used for many a soccer clash between many of the football clubs in the National Football league in the early seventies.

These days the stadium is used for rock concerts with Michael Jackson being one of the latest entertainers to have performed there. On Sundays and public holidays the area surrounding the stadium gets used a flea market.

Looking at the above one has to admit the Common has an incredible historical  background in the growth of our city.

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Cape Town’s pipe track

For those who are hikers we have a wonderful walking track which is in the mountains overlooking some of the most marvelous scenery on our Atlantic Seaboard. The track is just over 7 Km in length. You could ask the question as to why is this trail called the pipe track?

In the late 1880's our municipality gave the instruction to have the Woodhead tunnel built on Table Mountain.  Water was led from the Disa Gorge Rivulet on the mountain to the Molteno Reservoir via this tunnel. The reservoir is located in a suburb called Oranjezicht which is on the slopes of Table Mountain. The pipeline got laid on an area which was soon commonly known as the pipe track.

So if you ever visit Cape Town and you do this wonderful hike remember where the name for the trail that you are walking on comes from.

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Interesting Table Mountain facts

Our wonderful mountain has many little interesting facts that it holds within its rock base. Here are some of them:

These days we see Table Mountain floodlit by night and simply take the lighting for granted, but do you know when the mountain was lit up for the very first time? The answer to this is in 1947. The occasion was the Royal visit. Another occasion when the mountain was then lit up once more was during the Van Riebeek Festival in 1952.

Most Capetonians who love their city know that the first man to ascend Table Mountain was the Portuguese navigator and solder Antonio da Saldanha. He accomplished the feat in 1503. This leads to the question of who was the first woman to ascend the mountain and when did this take place? The answer to this is not documented as an individual but as a group of women who were in the company of Governer Simon van der Stel in 1680. To commemorate the event a pile of stones was heaped up on the top of the mountain.

Did you know that the first man to ascend Table Mountain on horseback was General Sir James Craig who accomplished the feat in 1818. Not to be outdone J. A.P.Cartwright also ascended the mountain in 1930 in a rather novel way to record a first in that he got to the top in a Baby Austin motor vehicle. There are photographs available to prove this feat. Let it however be told that the car had to be lifted almost bodily over some of the bad terrain.

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The Penguin Colony at Boulders, Simonstown

I think that most Capetonians as well as every Cape Town tourguide and tourist have been to the Penguin colony at Boulders Beach at some time or other in their lives but I wonder how many of these folk know how it was established?

The Boulder Penguin colony developed as a result of a school project involving the pupils of Fish Hoek High and Simon's Town High Schools! The pupils of the time aren't given much credit for this unfortunately.

The project was launched circa 1980 -1985. Some pupils discovered a pair of breeding penguins as they were caring for their newly laid eggs. The nest was vandalised and the pupils and public called for support. The news attracted attention when it appeared in the local paper.  The Simonstown Town Council appointed a guard to protect the nest and this led to the start of the protection and eventual growth of the colony.

The principal of Simonstown High School was Mr Brian Ingpen and the Fish Hoek principal was Mr Terry Hepworth.  Mr Ingpen is presently acting head once again at Simonstown and he remembers the details of the project vividly.

It seems as if the schools has not realized the value of this bit of history and consequently the educational institutions as well as it's pupils have not the received the kudos that they should have.

The question that should be asked is whether a plinth in honour of the pupils at the schools should be erected to record this fact or whether the project and outcome should be highlighted to UNESCO?

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