John Young CRICKET
Cricket’s transgressors and confessors probably haven’t noticed, but every morning as they pass through the portal of the Centre for the Book at 62 Queen Victoria Street, they are greeted with an impassive stare from one of South African cricket’s original sponsors.
A bas-relief bust of Sir Donald Currie, owner of the Union-Castle shipping line and founder of the Currie Cup cricket and rugby competitions, is situated in the entrance hall.
Although Hansie Cronje never held the cricket Currie Cup (it had become the Castle Cup by the time Free State won the trophy in 1993) we can be sure that the shipping magnate would not have approved of the unseemly goings-on being revealed in Cape Town. It’s a fair bet though, that Currie would have understood.
Like the ubiquitous Mohammed “Banjo” Cassiem, purveyor of biltong to the national cricket team and the link-man to the bookies, Currie was not averse to sending gamey favours to the most powerful men in the land. Cecil John Rhodes and president Paul Kruger were among the recipients of great slabs of venison and dozens of pheasants from Currie. A youthful Jan Smuts also had some help towards his Cambridge fees.
Currie has pride of place in the Centre for the Book because he was a major donor for the proud Edwardian building which originally housed the University of the Cape of Good Hope, an examining university for Victoria College and the South African College. The colleges went on to become universities in their own right – as Stellenbosch and the University of Cape Town.
The image looking down at the cricketers and their lawyers from the other side of the foyer is that of Willem Hiddingh, also a significant money donor and the man who gave the land to the university.
The grand central hall in which the inquiry is taking place is reminiscent of the old Reading Room of the British Museum. Spread betting was not a factor in his day, but Karl Marx spent long hours in the Reading Room pondering the evils of capitalism.
In lamenting the passing of this great British institution in the Weekly Telegraph, novelist David Lodge recalled that Victorian counterpart William Makepeace Thackeray had this to say about the effects of such a splendid vaulted chamber: “It seems to me one cannot sit down in that place without a heart full of grateful reverence.”
Thackeray was eternally grateful for a place where he could “speak the truth I find there”. Judge Edwin King will be hoping that the Centre for the Book elicits a similar response in his witnesses.
The remarkable building on the edge of the Dutch East Indian Company Gardens in the middle of Cape Town’s cultural precinct was designed in 1906 by the winners of a public competition, British architects Hawke and McKinlay.
The Cape Provincial Institute’s The Buildings of Central Cape Town describes it as a “monumental Edwardian Baroque edifice”. Among the features of the building are the beautifully proportioned hall (Judge King’s domain), the clever use of natural light in unusual places and the Italianate towers that frame the impressive copper-domed roof. Architectural competitions are no longer in vogue but the result of that early Cape contest produced a wonder. Among their other works in South Africa, Hawke and McKinlay also designed the law courts in Bloemfontein.
After briefly serving as a home to correspondence university Unisa, the Cape Archives took up residence in 1932. By the time the archives moved in 1990 to the old jail around the corner, 62 Queen Victoria Street was falling down. The roof had chronic leaks and the stonework was flaking.
A proclamation in the same year by the National Monuments Council saved the grand old building and the first stage of renovation – fixing the roof – began immediately. The second stage involved replacing the crumbling sandstone with Paarl granite, repairing the water damage and demolishing the inappropriate additions of previous generations.
To judge by the quality of fittings, the Public Works Department spared nothing in upgrading the interior. The second part of the renovation process took rather longer and the new, improved Centre for the Book was unveiled towards the end of 1995.
The lead consultant on the project, John Rennie, has also successfully renovated Cape Town’s city hall and the cathedral in Grahamstown.
Parts of the Mendelssohn collection, one of the most precious collection of Africana, are now housed at Queen Victoria Street. Other rare books and special collections are kept there in environmentally controlled stores and fall under the control of the neighbouring South African Library.
The ground floor is given over to the Centre for the Book, an ambitious project which aims to get all South Africans reading. World Book Day came to South Africa for the first time in 1998 through the centre; writers’ workshops are regularly held and this year the centre will host the launch of Adult Learners’ Week.
The centre aims to bring together the many strands of the world of books including writers, editors and the makers of books. That King and his commission are focusing on bookmakers is an unfortunate coincidence.
Hansie Cronje was batting for the under- nines when the Windsor Castle steamed out of Table Bay for the last time in 1977. It was the end of an era in which Sir Donald Currie’s line carried more passengers than all his competitors put together.
In the 1880s there had been fierce competition between the mailship lines so Sir Donald created a regulatory board to make sure that they didn’t compete too hard. A modern eye might see price-fixing but to Victorians it was no doubt explained as “fair competition”.
Presumably, fair competition is what Currie thought he was encouraging when he donated a cup for South Africa’s top cricketers.