The Port Shepstone Rotciry Course If you or anyone you know ever has the chance to go to the Port Shepstone Rotary Leadership course, do not let the opportunity pass. I was one of the privileged people who went on the course in 1983,and I can honestly say that no holiday ever meant so much to me. The aim of the course is to nurture and enhance qualities of leadership. The course is no production line; raw mater ials are not fed in the one side to produce leaders at the other. Rather, leadership was encouraged through the development of personal confidence. One of the qualities most vital to a leader is confidence, and from the commencement of the camp, we were urged to participate. As a result, the day-to-day progress of people who had started the course reserved and quiet, was remark able. The people who were really responsible for the results were the lecturers. They were all, without exception, excellent. I do not think I have ever been captivated so completely for two hours. We were instructed in public speaking, memory training, human relations and many other topics, terminating with a guide to prefects' leader ship, by the Vice Headmaster of Port Shepstone High School. From the moment we were in the care of theRotary Club of Port Shepstone, we were treated royally. The Rotarians were helpful, willing toprovide transport, and organise the braai and dance which, being at boarding school, I thought was one of the highlights of the course. This course has become one of the landmarks in my life. I learnt a great deal and met many people who I will remember for a long time. As a final word, I would like to thank Rotary for the service they are doing for South Africans. P.P. DE VILLIERS-5A Theforgotten schools of Hillcrest Hillcrest in 1983 is growing very fast. It is hard to believe that fifty years ago there were only a few people living there. Many things about old Hill Crest (which is how it used to be written) are being forgotten. Very few people, for example, know that there used to be several private schools in Hillcrest. This article tells the stofies of those almost forgotten schools. Hill Crest began in 1895 when Mr Ernest Acutt leased 612 acres of the farm Albinia from Mr William Gillitt. Acutt then divided up the land into smaller portions. He leased these properties to other people who built holiday cottages on them. For the next twenty years or so Hill Crest was mainly a holiday centre, where people could escape from Durban's summer heat. Delamore School The ealiest school in the district was Delamore School. Not very much is known about it. It was started by the Rev. OxIey-Oxland about 1895. If this is the same man who was earlier in Richmond,thenhe was J. Oxiey-Oxland,who was the first Master of the Carnarvon Lodge of Freemasons in Richmond, installed in 1887. It is said that he opened Delamore School to educate his own sons. So that his pupils could get off the train the Delamore Halt was introduced. This was the first "station" at Hill Crest. It was near the present Hillcrest Shopping Centre. It used to be marked by two fir trees and a large packing-case in which parcels could be left. The.Delamore boys walked from the halt,up what is now Crooked Lane to their school. It was on the land stretching from what is now Delamore Road to the houses opposite the Hillcrest Hospital. It seems that Delamore School was still open when Mrs Sibella MacMillan started Highbury School in 1903. Highbury is the only one of Hillcrest's private schools to have survived. In' the history of Highbury by Mr Sholto MacMillan it says:"There was already another school in the area, owned by a Mr Chard who later sold it to the Rev. Oxiey-Oxland. It survived until about 1919."(Highbury, p. 15). But this is wrong. Mr Chard did not come to Hill Crest until 1910, when he took over the premises of the old Delamore School which had closed by then. So the school referred to by Mr MacMillan must have been the Rev. Oxiey-Oxland's school. This is confirmed by a later sen tence in Highbury: "For a few years there were pupils at Delamore, or Oxiey-Oxland's school who came to join in the games." (p. 36). Apart from Crooked Lane and Delamore Road, there is no trace left of Hillcrest's first school. It must have closed between 1905 and 1910. Redcliffe Like Highbury, Redcliffe was opened by a young widow with several children to support. Redcliffe was a primary school for girls situated where the Hillcrest Hospital is today. It was opened in 1907 by Mrs E.L. Baker. She had come to South Africa as a bride of twenty-two in 1890. Her husband was a businessman in Durban and they had a cottage at Hill Crest. They called it Redcliffe after a place near Bristol in England, where Mr Baker had been brought up and where they were married. When her husband died Mrs Baker was in financial diffi culties and she had two sons to bring up. She opened a school for girls at Redcliffe. Most of her pupils (there were between fifteen and twenty of them) came from nearby farms. Many came by horse or donkey.Some walked as far as four miles. Mrs Baker was the only teacher and there was only one classroom.She was very strict. She taught writing, arithmetic, English, botany,history,geography, French and music.She must have known a lot. The girls had no uniforms and no badge. There were no organised games, either. The girls used to play hopscotch and rounders at break. They also climbed trees. They had to bring their own sandwiches for lunch. Mrs Baker had a pet baboon called Jemima, who used to steal the girls' sandwiches. In those days Hill Crest had only about five houses and a store called "The Wagoner's Rest" run by a Mr Fregona. His daughters went to Redcliffe. After some years Mrs Baker married Mr Thomas Robertson. The girls then used to call her "Ma Rob". Her son, Mr Lance Baker of Nottingham Road, thought his mother had married again in 1921. It must have been before this because in 1913 she signed herself "E.L. Robertson" in a girl's autograph book. At about the same time she moved the school to a house off Inanda Road. It was where Fregona's Dairy was later, in what today is Ridge 28
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