From windmills to turbines

By Maeder Osler

‘In 1904 there was only one windmill in the Colesberg area, and water supplies were provided by earthen dams which became very contaminated in dry seasons. Pools in the river beds and natural fountains were available on many farms too. Subsequent water boring produced excellent results. The early machines were provided with diamond drill-heads and the holes averaged 3”4” in diameter. The lower hantam is fed by a tributary of the Orange River and in the early days the main stream were thickly clustered by reeds which provided long stretches of water generally known as “Zeekoe gats” in which “hippos” lived …’

Thus an extract from notes made by Morton William Barnes-Webb, first manager of the initial 45 farms bought by the Rhodes/Beit/Bailey (RBB) syndicate in the Nuwe Hantam area of the grassy Karoo.

It forms part of the ‘Nuwe Hantam Collection’ – the extensive collection of hitherto unpublished documents donated to Toverview by Barnes-Webb’s grandson, Peter Barnes-Webb, who also farmed in the area until recently, and now lives in the same retirement village as the author in Somerset-West. The notes have also been typed up by Peter’s mother, the late Marie Barnes-Webb, daughter-in- law of M.W. Barnes-Webb.

Another long-standing neighbour – in the same retirement complex, and previously in the Nuwe Hantam – is Will Bailey, a grandson of Sir Abe Bailey, the driving force behind the RBB syndicate. (Jim Bailey, the World War Two fighter pilot and founder of Drum Magazine, was Will’s uncle.)

Following Will’s retirement, his son Greg, a great-grandson of Sir Abe, has taken over  his dad’s farms, passed down from the RBB land holdings. Previously, Greg led the team that produced a promotional video for the Hantam Community Education Trust (HCET), the award-winning educational project housed on donated land at Grootfontein Farm in the Nuwe Hantam, where Abe Bailey stayed when he spent time in the area. Today, Grootfontein is owned by the Van Hoogstraten family.

Just to complete this particular circle, or circle within circles, Peter Barnes-Webb’s wife, Clare, joined Les Osler (and Anja Pienaar) in founding the HCET some 30 years ago. Today, it is housed in a complex on donated land on Grootfontein Farm, now owned by the Van Hoogstraten family.

A windmill on the werf at Hanglip Farm.

Windmills are, of course, ubiquitous – an icon of the Karoo. But even this is changing. Will Bailey is one of the innovative farmers in the Nuwe Hantam who began to replace windmills with pumps driven by solar power.

The story of water and its use in the Nuwe Hantam (and the old one, for that matter) stretches back to the Stone Age, as evidenced by engravings in a cave adjacent to the Oorlogspoort stream near the later syndicate holdings.

Archaeological and other ongoing records reflect animal husbandry by hunter gatherers, trekboer farmers, and burgeoning communities of ‘colonial’ settlers – with formal tenure in the form of ‘kaart en transport’ – farming with sheep, beef, ostrich, and horses.

These pluralities of land use and occupation encompass expansions and migrations, cooperations and conflicts, tradings, wars, and negotiations around land and precious minerals, amid ongoing processes of modernisation in a world partially shaped by the dynamics of water – droughts and floods, spruite and dams, windmills and solar panels, in a growing context of climate change.

Perennial water from the Oorlogspruit on Hanglip Farm.

Not surprisingly, windmills have been embedded in die public imaginary about the Karoo – among others in poetry. A December message to members from the Red Meat Producers Organisation (RPO) Northern Cape features the following poem by Alet van Zyl:

As ek vir jou my droom kon stuur

Saam met die Noorde wind,

sou ek die soet reuk van die veld saamstuur,

die klank van windpomp in die wind,

van reën op ‘n plaashuisdak

as genade oor ons uitsak.

Ek sou jou herinner om te leef,

Lief te hê en genoeg te lag.

Ek wens vir jou my mooiste wens van vreugde

In jou elke dag bestaan en vrede met jou pad

Waarheen hy ook mag gaan.

The RPO message then adds some lines of its own, containing Christmas wishes. (See A dream or a bird?: the red meat guys and the Christmas poem, elsewhere on this site.)

Windmill on Hanglip Farm.

My brother Antony, holding an old presence on Poplar Grove Farm alongside the Nuwe Hantam, has read the following poem during an interview with Michael Raimodo on the ‘Reflections on Life’ Youtube channel, in an episode titled ‘Choosing A Slower Life’:

The dogs still bark in the ancient plain

The rainbow still lights up the veld after the rain

The windmill still turns the ten thousand things

I am the broken string

I am the bells that ring

I am the stars, the stars that sing.

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Featured image: Windmill on Hanglip Farm, late afternoon. All pictures: Riaan de Villiers.