In the Northern Cape you’ll find a bar with an impressive collection of beer cans and a museum that tells the story of a family with four identical sons. On 16 June 1919, a certain Captain Nash came out toVictoria Westand, in the company of the mayor and a councillor, inspected a site just outside the little Northern Cape village. He reported that the “sandhills between the bushes” were a bit hard and it would be nice if the council could have the area softened and levelled out.
Thus was born the concept of an “air service station” that would put Victoria West on the world aviation map. It was a perfect refuelling spot for the aeroplanes flying between Cape Town and Johannesburg. There was a miniature arrivals/departures hall and a dinkum flight control tower that overlooked the delicious vastness that is the Upper Karoo.
During the heady Wool Boom era of the early 1950s, local farmers’ wives would climb aboard a South African Airways Douglas DC-3 and go globe-trotting with a shopping list of note. Old clippings will tell you that the job of replacing torn windsocks was assigned to the man from Bester’s Garage in town. Although it lost its international status in 1967, Victoria West is still on the radar.
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All craft flying between Cape Town and points north routinely check in on the old aerodrome’s navigational beacons. I’ll bet you’re wondering just what Old Speckled Hen – Strong Fine Ale tastes like. Well, I couldn’t really say.
But Idoknow there are a couple of empty Old Speckled Hen beer cans up in theBlikkies Bar in Carnarvon, Northern Cape. Here’s the skinny on Old Speckled Hen: At the MG car factory in England, employees used an aged model as a runabout. Over the years it was somehow covered in flecks of paint, so they nicknamed it “Owld Speckled ‘Un”.
That’s where the Morland Brewery originally got the name for its brown ale in 1979, when it was asked to craft a special beer for the 50th anniversary of the MG factory. Eventually the brewing company followed with Old Crafty Hen, Old Golden Hen and Old Hoppy Hen. But if you want the Real McCoy, so to speak, you just ask for “The Hen”.
I could go on, as I sit here in the Blikkies Bar gazing soulfully at thousands of beer cans collected from all over the world: London Pride, Watney’s Strong Pale Ale, Younger’s Tartan Special Bitter, Harp Lager, Buddles Bitter and so on. A couple of bikers from Cape Town have just wandered in, complete with helmets, leathers and badges. Do you think they’d buy me a beer if I told them the Old Speckled Hen story? Let’s give it a bash.
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