Port St Johns Stories

                                                              DJ's in the Jungle Advertising in the press had gone on for months – the British Radio Station, Capital 604, was going to open a station in Port St Johns, and broadcast from there, 24 hours a day. It would reach Durban , East London, Johannesburg , and all the latest music would be played by top notch DJ’s from England and the United States . In 1976, Radio 5 (previously L M Radio), was regarded as mod, but they only broadcast in the major centers. Capital 604 would show the SABC what broadcasting was about. The mansion known as the Port Captain’s house on the hill overlooking Port St Johns, was turned into a radio station, the windows were all double glazed, so that the rooms could become studios. Broadcasting equipment was brought in, technical staff we...

Farming a la Port St Johns Dagga, weed, ganja, dope – Cannabis Sativa and Cannabis Indica are known by many names. It’s a robust annual, can grow up to 4m in height. It doesn’t need much water, and it does like hot weather.   It is a plant of many uses, it was grown in China as far back as 1500 BCE and   was supposedly regularly eaten by the founder of the Persian Sufi sect. The early jeans were made from hemp, and it was grown in America since 1606 and was an important crop throughout the 1800’s. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson farmed the crop. Today it is extremely fashionable (and green) to wear clothes made from organically grown hemp. Medicinally the plant is used as an analgesic and anesthetic. It is used for asthma, arthritis and epilepsy. It cures cancer. It is often used to ease the discomfort of terminally ill cancer patients. As was recorded by one cancer patient, not using cannabis was dying of cancer, using cannabis changed his life t...

                                      Second Beach - The most dangerous beach in the world? The most dangerous beach in the world, Second Beach, Port St Johns, wasn’t always the most dangerous beach in the world. A few years ago, before the phenomenon of shark attacks happened, it was one of the most relaxed, unspoilt beaches in the world. Port St Johns, the little village on the Wild Coast of Transkei, was a place that was on the top of most people’s holiday wish lists. A place that was difficult to get to, but that was relaxed, that when you did get to it, you forgot that the rest of the world existed. Its permanent residents were made up of an eclectic mix of artists, farmers, hippies, at one time the staff of the rebel radio station, Capital 604, at another stage; ex Rhodesian Selous Scouts, who trained up an elite army corps. Second beach, a picture perfect spot: whi...

                                                    Con men and Confidence Tricksters             Having been a settlement since the mid 1800’s, Port St Johns has seen the most varied and interesting people walk and sail through its gates. As Sydney Turner, the sea captain more responsible for the settling of PSJ once said; “Port St Johns has become the receptacle for society’s drop outs”. Transkei became a hidey hole for brazen, clever con men. Bribery and corruption was the norm. It was the done thing to get necessary permissions, licenses, exemption from taxes – whatever. Jacob Ballantyne fancied himself as a builder of an African Empire, on hearing him speak, one could almost imagine that he had read one too many epic African novels and had modeled himself on his namesake, the swash buckling gentleman ...

                                                Our own little war in Port St Johns 28 March 1994, Johannesburg is remembered in South African history as a day of a terrible street battle, when warring factions of ANC supporters and IFP supporters clashed in a terrible fight that claimed lives, maimed healthy young bodies, and brought more shame to South Africa ’s bitter war against itself. The world reacted with horror to the day’s events, and there was global recoil as the bloody scenes were transmitted on television sets across the world. In Port St Johns we knew nothing of what was going on in Johannesburg . We were too busy thinking of our own survival, to tune into the news. We had gotten caught up in the crossfire between the local factions of the ANC and the PAC. It was during what I refer to as the ‘shoot a white days’, pre-elections, T...

                                                 Leopards and Cars in Port St Johns The years running up to the 1994 election were years of total mismanagement on the part of the police in Transkei . Was there such a thing as an honest cop? Those of us who lived in Transkei doubted it. There didn’t seem to be any justice at all. Criminals were arrested, often caught red handed (so there must have been some hardworking honest cops, not so?), but the arrestees were generally let out on low bail, from which they absconded, or they escaped from custody with the help of a uniformed cousin-brother, or the files ‘got lost’. Yeah right, as in burnt. The Stolen Vehicle Squad and the Water Wing of the South African Police often worked in the area undercover. How, you ask? Transkei only had two border posts on its 40 odd roads that lead to South Africa, so...