We cannot access the beaches of Hermanus on the first day of 2021, so I thought you might like to see some of the beaches as they were in history. There is a caption to each image, giving information about the photo. All historical photos are used by permission of the Old Harbour Museum Trust. You can buy prints of the photos used here, and hundreds more, from the Photographic Museum in Market Square. Please contact the Curator Marinda Wilmans at photomuseum5@gmail.com You might be interested also in quotes from the memoirs of someone who was closely involved in the development of Hermanus as a beach resort from 1915 to 1983: Johanna Susanna Luyt, born van Rhyn. One afternoon I got an urgent phone call from Henry asking me to come out to the Riviera right away. One of the guests, a Miss X, had taken off all her clothes and was running up and down the Riviera Beach stark naked. She had been staying there for a week, also with a nurse, supposedly convalescing after an illness. In actual fact, she had been to a mental home. I told Henry to fetch Sergeant Roux and his wife and ask the Sergeant to wear plain clothes, while I telephoned her family to say we were sending Miss X home. When the Sergeant, a most understanding man, arrived, I sent the nurse to Miss X (still capering around on the beach) with a wrap, to tell her that a very nice man had called to take her for a drive. Miss X was delighted with this, so we were able to persuade her to get dressed, while the nurse packed their things. She went off quite happily in the car, sitting next to the Sergeant, with Mrs Roux and the nurse. Miss X was a lovely girl. When young she was subject to periodic fits; on becoming engaged, her parents felt that the young man should be told of this. His parents made him break off the engagement. Miss X had had a complete mental breakdown, and had been in a home off and on for years. This little story has a happy ending. Some years later, I met Miss X unexpectedly, in Cape Town. She was completely cured, had married, and was very happy. From “In Those Days: The Story of Joey van Rhyn Luyt at the Marine Hotel, Hermanus” (ed) Robin Lee, 2014. Available from The Book Cottage, Hermanus). From the mid-thirties Hermanus became fashionable. Society decreed that it was the ‘thing to do’ to holiday at Walker Bay. This brought a new flood of visitors, not interested in fish or fishing or the healthy air, but intent on having a good time. The Cape newspapers carried lists in their social columns of the more prominent people staying at the Marine, Bay View and Riviera Hotels, and, during the Christmas, New Year and Easter holidays, reporters would drive down for the day to take photographs of Cape Town and Johannesburg socialites sunning themselves on the beaches or posed on the lawns of hotels and stoeps of the seaside cottages. Voëlklip beach was the daily rendezvous of the younger set. One went to the Riviera Beach occasionally to get away from the crowd, but at Voëlklip one met everybody. The small beach would be packed with sun-tanned bodies; the girls in bright bathing costumes, gay play-suits, brief shorts and halter tops. Two pieces and bikinis were not yet thought of; bare backs were the fashion! From “In Those Days: The Story of Joey van Rhyn Luyt at the Marine Hotel, Hermanus”, Robin Lee (ed.), 2014. Available at the Book Cottage, Hermanus In the 1920s, we initiated our own bus service between the two hotels (formerly a cart and horse had been used). The bus was a converted lorry, on which a wooden framework with a canvas hood had been erected; the open sides had canvas blinds which could be rolled down in wet weather. Apart from the visitors (who travelled free of charge), the bus took cans of milk, the post, parcels and provisions to the Riviera. The first driver was Swanny. Later, in the 1930s, it was Coen Minnaar. The bus ran several times a day during the summer months (less frequently in the winter) to a regular schedule, making stops at the Golf Course, Kraal Rock, Mossel River and Voëlklip, the terminus being of course the Riviera Hotel. Guests staying at the Riviera who wanted to spend a day in the village, could have lunch at the Marine free of charge; the same applied to visitors at the Marine, who could plan a day on the beaches and have lunch at the Riviera. From “In Those Days: The Story of Joey van Rhyn Luyt at the Marine Hotel, Hermanus”, Robin Lee (ed.), 2014 (available at The Book Cottage, Hermanus)