About Us

The history of the opening up and development of Southern Africa is, among others, a history of volunteerism and personal sacrifice.

The story of how a nation grew from wilderness to sophisticated economy in a period of little more than a century is the story of the heroic lives of ordinary men and women who found ways to make it happen on the ground, right where they were.

This site is an attempt to salvage for posterity those many local and personal stories that they not be forgotten or lost in time, and that they serve perhaps as inspiration to others in other places and other times.

Whilst perusing the materials that have found themselves onto this site, one is struck by the extent to which ordinary citizens across the country sacrificed much of their personal time, energy, expertise and resources to help open up and develop their local communities, in an often hostile land. Moreover, that sacrifice was mostly made for little or no pecuniary gain or personal aggrandisement.

The local Town Council (or Stadsraad) was made up of locally elected volunteers who painstakingly planned and later raised funds for roads, bridges, water reticulation, sewerage farms and even electricity generation facilities. They saw to the funding and development of local hospitals, clinics, schools and sometimes even airports.

There was no direct benefit to being a Town Councillor (or Raadslid). Hardly any South African Municipal councillor was paid any form or remuneration for their services as councillor. The elected mayor might however, sometimes have been modestly reimbursed for travel expenses incurred if he had to leave the local area on pre-approved official business.  This is regrettably no longer the case. Municipal councillor remuneration is today at such a level that it has the effect of changing the lives of some elected officials and their families so dramatically that cases of murder have been recorded whilst persons vie for nomination for these posts. Indeed, the change experienced is often so dramatic that the newly elected councillor will move with his or her entire family to residential areas far removed from those who have elected them.

Service as a councillor was its own reward. Citizens were enormously proud to be recognised as councillors, mayors and Aldermen. The slightest whiff of corruption (moral or financial) would bring such shame and scandal down upon one’s entire family that rumour alone would often be enough to drive people to permanently depart from their town or village. Everyone knew their neighbours and their role and status in the community. Everyone tried to make some contribution, either by helping to build local public facilities, or by treating them with great care and respect once they became publicly available.   

Having gone to great lengths to raise the necessary funding, (oftentimes through simple church fetes, raffles and the like) and having marshalled the professional and other skills necessary for overseeing construction and installation activities over months and years, no one wanted to lose the asset before time.  Careful and thorough maintenance of municipal facilities was therefore a common priority, and every citizen felt a party thereto.