Rob Dempster 'Allo 'Allo Gardens! (AAG) Howick (uMngeni) The Burst Water Pipe 9 March 2026

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My Dad born in Bloemfontein. He attended Grey College and did not matriculate. He did qualify as a plumber. After I had spent my first school year at Grey College, we left Bloemfontein. We left to support his mother who was rellocating to the Strand, the Western Cape seaside town that my mother's mother lived in. I had just completed Class I. After that we lived in Durban (Class II) and Ladysmith (Standard I) before my father finally settled in Allanridge, a village in the Orange Free State Gold Fields. There I completed Standards 2 to 5 before returning to Grey College in Bloemfontein as a Border. I matriculated there in 1965.

My father spent the rest of his working life maintaining the municipal infrastructure of Allanridge. If a water pipe burst in Gamtoos Street at 9 PM on any night of the week, my father would receive a phone call. He would then collect some staff, the necessary tools and a length of water pipe. They would then then proceed to the location of the burst water pipe. There they would turn the water for Gamtoos Street off, fix the leak and turn the water back on.

My wife and I retired to Howick, a lovely village in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. Here water pipes also burst. However here they are seldom repaired ASAP (ala Allanridge)). Here all kinds of scenarious unfold, and residents can be left without water for days. Currently the delay is as a result of having to wait for clearance (permission) that would allow the digger that is required, to travel on a public road. The same is true of electricty outages. The most recent eelctricity outage was a classic. We had to wait for a pole to be sourced in an area where they grow poles, lots of them!

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