Page 156 - Bulletin 19 2015

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There is an interesting story about Onaway. Esdon Frost, who lived in Prenton Street as a
boy, said that the famous author Nicholas Monsarrat lived for a time at Onaway and that he

wrote his novel ‘The Cruel Sea’ while there. The book was published in 1951. Looking at the

evidence this seems plausible. Monsarrat was in South Africa during this period. Based in
Johannesburg as Director of the UK Information Office, he also spent time in Cape Town.

Glendyr Nel, Harold Orr’s grand-daughter, has memories of happy days at these houses:

As I recall it, after my grandfather died, my grandmother Alice Orr inherited the properties.

She loved Onaway in particular and would spend up to 6 months every year there. There
were two daughters, Elizabeth (known as Maureen) and Alizanne (my mother) and they each

had large families (5 and 4 children respectively). We would all join our granny in the
summer holidays and Maureen and Osie Dawson, her husband, would sleep in Craigside,

while the children all slept either there or in Kimberley cottage.

My mother and father, Alizanne and Nic Labuschagne, slept with granny in Onaway. We all
ate together in Onaway. When my granny died, ( as I understand it although your records

may indicate otherwise), she left Onaway and a part share of Craigside and Kimberley
Cottage to my mother, while my aunt Maureen got the major share of the latter two Main

Road properties. Like my granny, my mother loved Onaway and refused to sell it while
Maureen and her family sold up, paid my mom her part share, and bought a holiday home in

Natal instead. (Fig. 3.44.)

We continued to visit every summer and my parents converted the garage at Onaway to a
boys' room while the girls slept in one of the two bedrooms that Onaway contained. I lived in

Onaway from late 1980 until 1985/1986, when my husband was transferred away from Cape
Town.

Although Harold Orr planned to add a floor to Onaway to the drawings of architects H

Roberts and Scholten in 1955, this was not done. The original house has disappeared under a
major re-development. (Figs. 3.45 & 3.46.)