Unbelievably, the sun did rise again on the morning of October 29, 1917, after the worst flood in Durban’s recorded history claimed 400 lives and left over 2 000 people homeless and hopeless.
“Along the foreshore is the wreckage of many Indian homes which were hurled into the waters for many miles; chasms where formerly there were railway embankments; distorted stumps of bridges which had spanned valleys along the North and South Coast” described The Pictorial, a local news magazine.
The plight of the destitute market gardeners gripped the city. A Flood Relief Committee was quickly established. It was headed by Mayor Nicholson and supported by wealthy business people of all races.
However, the funds collected were less than 1% of what was needed to help over 400 families feed and clothe themselves, and to buy seed and farm equipment to rebuild their lives. It was estimated that the losses this community suffered totalled over £30 000 - a princely sum in those days. Adding to their woes, was a declaration by Mr Oldham, an evaluator, that their lands were rendered useless for vegetable farming. Thick swathes of white sand covered their once rich alluvial soil.
The Union government refused to declare the episode a "national disaster". The state did not intervene or contribute a penny. Throughout its lifespan, both the Union and the apartheid governments stand accused of being an uncaring custodian of the welfare of people of colour.
“During my war campaigns I had seen many noble deeds performed but I doubt whether they were more noble than those performed by these men on October 28,” said Inspector W Alexander of the Durban Water Police, at a public ceremony held in honour of the Padavatan Six by the City of Durban, a month after the devastating flood.
The six heroes, each received a gold medal of bravery and Captain Marimuthoo Padavatan was gifted with an engraved pocket watch and a golden walking stick. Most of these heirlooms survived and are treasured by the descendants of these men.
At the ceremony, Chief Constable Donovan said, “I personally saw a part of what these men did, and I can only testify that they took a man’s part - a brave part, in rescuing so many people.”
Monies raised for the Padavatan Six, as a token of appreciation, were graciously diverted by these heroes to the Relief Fund. “This was a call from God, and we gave off our skills in that spirit with no thought of compensation,” they proclaimed.
Many resilient market gardeners, as soon as they could, returned to their old location, despite the condition of the soil. They knew no other living and possessed no other skill. The Market Gardeners of Tin Town were to experience the wrath of the Mgeni in flood a few more times - in 1935, 1973, 1976 and finally in 1987.
Today, the mighty Mgeni has been tamed. The City Planners raised the flood plains and canalised the lower parts of the river for commercial development. The market gardeners were eventually removed to make way for the Springfield Industrial Park.
As the era of the market gardeners of Durban drew to a close, the seine-netters, too, found their world eroding. Once feigned as incredible heroes, they were soon pushed from one beach to the next, until the jackboot of the Group Areas Act of 1963 finally crushed Durban’s pioneer fishing industry.
The Group Areas Act impacted greatly on the life and trade of the seine-netters. In pursuing their trade they needed to venture both along the north and south coasts following shoals of fish unimpeded. With Group Areas, many towns and boroughs along the coast were out of bounds for non-whites.
In 1965, the fisher folk were forced to move to Chatsworth, 25km from the sea. This was to be the final time they moved as a cohesive community. Separated and living in pockets in tiny houses built across the sprawling township of Chatsworth, this once close-knit fishing community rapidly disintegrated
For many, the forced move to Chatsworth was the final blow. One morning in 1965, an elderly Indian fisherman, Doorasamy Goondan, grandson of pioneer seine-netter Muniswami, was seen praying by the surf at Addington Beach next to a garlanded boat, DNA 7. Onlookers said this man carefully undressed, laid his clothes on the shore and rowed the boat, naked, beyond the breakers. Later, the boat was recovered - empty.
His suicide was apparently motivated by severe depression experienced after his family’s forced removal from their beautiful home in Fynnlands to the crowded township of Chatsworth. He found himself too far away from the call of the tides he loved so much.
What you have just read is but one small part of a story of a community that impressed upon Durban a distinctive sea-stained culture.
It’s a story salvaged from the deteriorating memories of elders and pieced together using creased photographs from family albums long consigned to attics and garages.
How has it come to be that such a rich and vibrant part of the South African story has been relegated to the fringes of memory? It is time for all communities to tell their forgotten stories, for in the re-telling we may build a nation.
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.