Red shark day

Not a flag seen everyday.  The red flag tells us that a shark has recently been spotted or that there is activity in the water that might attract sharks such as the presence of seals, shoals of fish, dolphins, a beached whale.

Earliest report of a shark fatality in Cape Town was recorded in 1920.  Details are sketchy.  A student from the University of Cape Town was apparently attacked whilst swimming off the Cape Town Pier.

The pier was built in 1913 and demolished in 1940.

Good bye Mr Hand

1975 was a very good year, for a teacher of history and boys of independent means.  School master Ernest Hand is seated for the Form III photo of the same year.

Shortly after Victory day and somewhere in London, Mr Hand was awarded a Diploma in Education.  Twenty odd years later he joined the staff of WWPS.

A career teacher, Mr Hand took rooms at the school for 22 years.  Well liked and respected Mr Hand was a teacher who accessed respect with his kindness and gravelly voice.  Form III class and history teacher, extra-mural cine club facilitator and long standing Akela of the 4th Claremont Boy Scouts.

Good bye Mr Hand, gentle man and author of many fond memories.  (Ernest Hand died in August 2011)

Anton Piek

Four years before Architect Anton de Witt started work on the renovation of St Johns Anglican church in Wynberg, fellow Dutchman and namesake Anton Piek was born in den Helder, Netherlands. Timeline is 1894.  Den Helder is in the North West, northern most point of the Holland peninsula.

Unbeknownst to many, Anton Piek enjoyed a good innings.  He outlived John Lennon and missed the fall of the Berlin wall by merely two years.

Church parade on Sunday (Part I)

Lots of colour in this stained glass window.  At shoulder height is the label of St John.  With his back facing North, this window is besieged by mid day light.  Augustus Pugin might be the clue to the origins of this beautifully detailed image.  Augustus is acknowledged as the reviver of Gothic styles in the English church.  Our time line is not so long ago - early 19th century.  The proud owner of the stained glass window is the St Johns Church of Wynberg.  Built in the 1830's, it is very likely that architects of the time were in some way influenced by the work and designs of Augustus Pugin.  Architect Pugin reintroduced a Gothic style to the English Church.  He was instrumental in the reconstruction of the houses of parliament after the devastating fire of 1834.  But back to St John.  History is sketchy and facts are mostly heresay.  Old thinking is that St John was one of the 12 apostles, apparently a favourite of the carpenters son.  After much drama St John fled Eretz Israel to the Greek Isle of Patmos, where in a cave, he composed much of what we know to be the book of revelations.  Over the subsequent many years St John, known in various churches as St John the evangelist, was seen to be reading a book, holding an ornate cup and often pictured with an eagle close at hand. Patmos was not the end of the road as St John lived a long life that ended in Sulcek in modern day Turkey.

St John at Patmos as seen through the paint brush of artist Jean Fouquet.  This work was commissioned in the mid 1400's by French royal treasurer, Ettienne Chevalier.  The work is part of a collection of miniature paintings bound together in a small volume known as a book of hours.  A habit long since dropped, the book of hours was a devotional book comprising a collection of biblical texts, prayers and psalms.  The book of hours was usually a personalized manuscript assembled for wealthy patrons.