I delivered my Darwin as Geologist talk to our Groote Schuur Probus Club on Monday, 14th April, 2025.
I originally delivered it in 2010 when we first attended the club, which meets at Kelvin Grove for luncheon and talk. The speaker should have been, in 2010, David Jack, who created The Waterfront, but he excused himself as his wife had just died.
I later served on the Probus committee for several years and served as president twice, a sort of record for the club. I also helped organise geological for the club, one as far east as Middelburg to the famous Rubidge farm and its excellent Dinosaur Museum. This was recently moved to Graaff Reinet, where it has been acclaimed, and rightly so.
My talk, on 14th April, 2025, 15 years later, was ready to roll before the luncheon, so a fellow-member, the astronomer, Dr Ian Glass, and I closed the laptop lid and had a fine meal. Then the talk failed to reappear, until 30 seconds before due time. Not good for the heart-rate!!
On 20th April, 2025, as you know, I delivered a speechlet during the unveiling of the Darwin Bust and Darwin Signage on the Simon’s Town Jetty. This was preceded by a rubber-duck trip to the Oosterschelde tall ship, where I met Andrew Darwin, a highlight of my year. After supper and talks at the Bertha’s Restaurant, we attended the Darwin: A Curious Mind play in the Simon’s Town Town Hall. The day’s events were beautifully documented and illustrated by The Friends of Iziko Museum, which I have probably already forwarded to you. Please confirm this.
On 23rd April, Phil and I attended the talks by Mike Bruton on Darwin’s visit to Cape Town in 1836 and a really excellent talk by our zoological friend, Professor George Branch, on genetics, Darwin having died before DNA was discovered. Born in 1809, a century before his time.
Phil and I visited his home, Down House in the village of Downe, on the North Downs, due south of the heart of London. We also went to his Christ’s College in Cambridge. Sadly exams were on the go and we were denied entry to see the new statue of Dawin as a Cambridge BA student, sitting on the arm of a wooden bench with his leather satchel over his shoulder.
On 24th April, we joined Andrew and Lucy Darwin, Mike Bruton and the gemmologist, Dr Petre Prins, who spent about R 1000 on excellent posters for the talk he gave at the Sea Point Contact, where Darwin collected a boulder of migmatite.
Petre was supervised for his 2-year PhD by the Cambridge mineralogist, Professor Deer, in a building beside the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Science, which Phil and I visited in 2013. We saw Darwin’s migmatite boulder with an inadequate label Migmatite: South Africa. Petre will check whether the curator followed through on my suggestion that Cape Town: Sea Point be added to the label, when he attends a Cambridge Reunion later this year.
On 15th May, I gave a second talk on my book to the residents of our Pinewood Retirement Village, the first being on 6th March. I have started negotiations re an outing for residents.
On 17th May, we attended an outing to the Sea Point Contact, organized by the Astronomical Society. Ian Glass gave a short talk on Darwin’s encounter with the astronomer Sir John Herschel, his scientific hero, in Newlands, in 1836. John Compton then gave a thorough talk on the geology of the Sea Point Contact.
On 14th June, I assisted Musa Mhlanga with his manuscript on the Sea Point Contact, earlier putting him in touch with the Wits geologist, Professor Sharad Master, who has written an excellent paper on Darwin’s visit to the contact.
My own illustrated article on the Darwin events of April, 2025, at the suggestion of Craig Smith, Executive Manager of the Geological Society of South Africa, was published in the Society’s GeoBulletin June 2025, Volume 68, Pages 49-52. The GSSA GeoBulletin secretary, Dr Trishya Owen-Smith of Wits (Geology), was very helpful to me in this regard.
For several years, I have told myself that I only planned to resign from the GeoHeritage Group after the Sea Point Contact issue was done and dusted. Thanks to the Darwin events of April, 2025 and the installation of the new ceramic plaques by the City of Cape Town, coordinated by Councillor Nicola Jowell, Philip Smith and Christo Smalberger of the City of Cape Town, who paid for the plaques, we can now celebrate an era with plaques of no interest to metal-thieves!
I therefore humbly submit my resignation from the Geoheritage Group, as we at last reach the world-stage!!
All for now
Yours sincerely
John