Traci Mackie was born to a working-class family, in an industrial village called Blackburn in Scotland. When she was nine years old, her parents decided to move to South Africa. The family settled in King William’s Town, Transkei (now Eastern Cape Province), after a brief stay in Port Elizabeth.
Arthur Nuthall Fula was born on 16 May 1908 in East London, Transkei (now Eastern Cape Province). In 1910, his parents – Samuel and Alice (née Stuurman) Fula – moved north to George Goch in Johannesburg, Transvaal Province (now Gauteng). He attended the Siemert School for Coloureds before going to the Eurafrican Normal College, however, he was unable to complete his primary school teacher’s diploma.
In the 1980s the National Party witnessed a renewed national and international pressure to initiate political reform. The Apartheid government accelerated its homeland policy and the introduction of the Tricameral Parliament gave Coloured and Indian minorities a limited say in running their own “affairs”.
The History of the Mount Nelson Hotel is intertwined with the early History of the Cape. The estate on which the Hotel is built was named: 'The Garden of van Oudtshoorn'. It was granted to a Dutch Baron, Pieter van Oudtshoorn van Rheede way back in 1741 by the then Governor of the Cape. The piece of land adjoins the Company Gardens albeit separated by a road these days.
