Durban - The old picture this week takes in the St John Building at 129 KE Masinga, formerly Old Fort, Road.
The picture was published on August 30, 1985, with the caption: “The stage is set at Durban’s St John Theatre for an enterprising redevelopment project aimed to put this once popular showplace firmly back on the city’s entertainment map.”
Old Fort Road was open to two-way traffic in 1985.
The 400-seater theatre with variable staging options was home of St John Ambulance Players, who presented three to four productions annually from 1956. Notable directors who worked there include Norman Coombes, Desmond Morley and David Matheson.
After 1994 the theatre was hired by local amateur groups and churches.
One reader on the Facts About Durban website remembers the punk and reggae explosion of the late ’70s with gigs held on Friday nights at the St John and Moth halls in the Old Fort area.
Despite the optimism of 1985, the building no longer operates as a theatre: the venue today is used as training for St John public health and home care courses.
The St John Ambulance Service and Association was first set up in the late 1890s in Durban by mechanical engineer William Milne and colleagues. Milne was one of the movers and shakers that led to the creation of Natal Government Railways. The first ambulance service operated out of Railway Company offices in Durban.
Today St John offers not only an ambulance service, but offers First Aid and Home Care training to commerce and industry, schools, government departments, and the general public so that they can assist in times of emergency at home and work. They train more than 25 000 people a year through a network of medical professionals, programme development specialists and instructors who provide health and safety training across South Africa.
Today the area under the old stage is used by the Denis Hurley Centre for its Street Lit project, which helps homeless people find employment and shelter by selling books on the city’s streets. It is here that many of the books donated by Independent readers in our Mandela Day initiative were sorted and stored before sale.
The Independent on Saturday