Port Elizabeth by Blaine McCleland - Gqeberha, South Africa - There's a Book About It on Waymarking.com

The book: Port Elizabeth: The Days of Yore and the Days of Mine: Part 1 by Blaine McCleland – Paperback – Oct. 17 2022.

From Amazon: "At the turn of the 19th century, Port Elizabeth was barely a twitch in the loins of the British Empire. In fact, it wasn’t even Port Elizabeth, but merely a Dutch landing place at the mouth of an insignificant river, a stream really. It was just a spot on some bureaucrat’s map in a stuffy office in London and could actually have been an errant drop of ink were it not for the Government Settler Scheme. It was designated that this would be where the Settlers, destined as a bulwark in the disputed border regions of Albany and Bathurst, would make landfall. In 1820, nigh on 4000 of them did and then along came Sir Rufane Donkin, acting Governor of the Cape, and named it Port Elizabeth not after his favourite tipple but after his beloved late wife, and so that errant spot became a town.

This book delves into the interesting aspects of that town from times before the Rinderpest and looks at them in ways that no historian has done before. This is not a definitive history that belongs on an academic bookshelf and whose weightiness and lack of readability is determined by the amount of dust it collects. Rather it is an accessible history, a witty and sometimes racy history, but much of the time, it is an irreverent one. Those are the Days of Yore.

However, I am an integral and indivisible part of that patchwork quilt of history by dint of having lived my first twenty-one years there but also by my direct ancestral links. On my dad’s side there is the irascible Rev Francis McCleland, an original Settler, who built St Mary’s Church and Daisy McCleland who built the Schoenies tearoom roughly one hundred years later. On my mom’s side there is George Dix-Peek, who designed many fine buildings, the old Standard Bank being one. My more modern experiences will resonate with those of a certain age who lived in the Golden Years of PE, the 50’s to the 80’s. Those are the Days of Mine.

Kick back and enjoy the rediscovery of your beloved city.
Blaine McCleland" (visit link)

Coordinates are from Gqeberha City Hall.

ISBN Number: 9780620978552 Author(s): Blaine McCleland

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