It was inconceivable then that train seats would be vandalised, as happens today as a daily occurrence, without people raising an eyebrow or effecting a citizen’s arrest, says the writer.
Wallace Mgoqi,
Cape Town - When Cape Town station was at its prime, it was such a dazzling place to be.
Us locals used to commute, albeit in apartheid trains, but the infrastructure was well maintained.
It was inconceivable then that train seats would be vandalised, as happens today as a daily occurrence, without people raising an eyebrow or effecting a citizen’s arrest.
Those of us who chose, after our Junior Secondary Certificate (JC) to go to boarding schools in the Eastern Cape or Natal, famous schools like Healdtown High School, Love-dale High School, St Matthews Girls High School, Bensonvale High School, in the Eastern Cape, and Ohlange High School, Inanda Seminary, Adams College, Inkamana High School, and others in Natal, as it was called then, departed from Cape Town’s main station.
In A Brief History of South African Mission Schools, former Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane writes: “The stories of origin of these schools are fondly remembered by those associated with these schools.
By the mid nineteen hundreds each of the schools had, in different ways, developed into bastions of education, and were incubators of a number of leaders who would reach the highest echelons of government.
Former president Nelson Mandela and several other prominent political leaders attended Healdtown; Sir Seretse Khama, Sir Ketumile Masire and almost the entire first cabinet of Botswana consisted of ‘Old Tigers’.”
Cape Town station in its glorious days was a source of pride to us Capetonians, among other students – we felt proud of where we came from. The day of returning to school, at the beginning of the year, or after the June school holidays, was a day of great joy to us.
As boys who had girlfriends to see us off, we made sure that our parents were not there, only our siblings accompanied us to the station, so as to save our parents the embarrassment of seeing us kissing our “lovers” as we departed for half the year.
The departing trains to the countryside left from the eastern side of the station, to places like the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the Transvaal, the Free State and the Northern Cape. The platforms were kept spotlessly clean, the train coaches were kept clean, there were train guards who were rough and racist in their attitudes, but they kept law and order.
As students, were also no angels, and we took liquor with us and drank on the journey to school. On arrival at Fort Beaufort, our boarding Master would be there to welcome us, and was the first to meet us in our drunken state.
When he caught the smell, he would give a student a big klap, and a kick with his 12-inch foot in a boot with an iron tip in front. He was a Methodist minister who had served in some army as a reservist.
In our excitement on our return home we looked forward to our families coming to welcome us back, at Cape Town station. The section that is dilapidated on the southern part of the station was dazzlingly beautiful in those days.
Nowadays, it makes one’s heart sink to see what state Cape Town station is in. You would be pardoned for thinking it was once a fairytale, and not a reality.
You wonder if there is no infrastructure crusader in the City council who could take up the challenge of upgrading Cape Town station, and restore it to its former glory?
It would take isolating this one project out of many and driving it aggressively to completion, as an example of how similar projects could be tackled that have significant historical importance, like Cape Town Castle, the Bellville Railway Interchange and other sites in the city.
It would be a matter of applying the 80/20 principle of aiming to achieve more with much less effort, time and resources by simply identifying and focusing our efforts on the 20% that really counts, achieving 80% impact.
Who knows, this could lead to the revival and resuscitation of the main lines leading out of Cape Town to other cities and towns that the train traversed in the past, like Worcester, Beaufort West, Graaf Reinet, Somerset East, up to East London, as well as from Cape Town via the Garden Route, passing towns like Mossel Bay, George, Knysna, Gqeberha, Makana, Alice, Fort Beaufort, up to Hamburg in the Eastern Cape, as well as inland, right up to Johannesburg, Pretoria, up to the Victoria Falls and the northern border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Who knows, a revival of this one station could open up unheard of opportunities for development in places where it has taken a back seat.
Towns of Fort Beaufort and Alice, among others, with educational institutions like teacher training colleges, and Fort Hare university with an ever-growing student body that needs student accommodation, present opportunities for developers with an entrepreneurial spirit to bring projects such as hotels and guest houses to these places and breathe a new life into them.
Cape Town station lends itself to being a rallying point for all Capetonians, regardless of race, class, political affiliation, or any other barrier, precisely because in some way or at some time or another , in our life in this city, we have had something to do with Cape Town station.
We all want iconic sites like this to be restored to their former glory and elegance. If the mayor or a mayoral committee member for infrastructure made a clarion call, true Capetonians would respond with reciprocity and a generous spirit, which has always characterised us.
Precisely because no one person or group of people have a monopoly on wisdom and truth, including in government, it would be prudent to create space for a public participation process and to draw on the wealth of knowledge and experiences of people across the entire range of Cape Town society as to the content, scope and structure of the project, to ensure that it is a resounding success.
If we do nothing we will only have ourselves to blame, and we would miss a golden opportunity to turn things around.
The words of 16-year-old Ruth Wolfgramm from Tonga should propel us into action: “Dear world: yes, you are sick and tired of all the suffering. But are you so blind? Don’t you realise that it is you and you only, each and every individual that makes up our world, that is responsible, and no one is any more to blame than the next person?
“Face this fact with braveness and boldness; our world is falling apart.
Now is not the time to despair and sigh, but the time to get out and help your neighbours.”
The renewal, refurbishment and restoration of Cape Town station could be a catalyst to bring about far-reaching changes, not only in the lives of those around Cape Town, but also those in far-flung areas of the rural hinterland of South Africa and southern Africa, for that matter.
Countries like Lesotho, Swaziland, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia would also be affected phenomenally.
Dr Mgoqi is an Advocate of the High Court, Holder of Doctor of Laws (h.c) degrees (UCT, UNITRA-WSU, City University of New York, US. He is the Chairperson of Ayo Technology Solutions and writes in his personal capacity.
Cape Times
** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Independent Media or IOL.
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