Portfolio: personal biographer

Have you failed magnificently, spectacularly, gloriously? Has one of your projects hit the deck so hard there's only one way to redeem it - and that's by telling everyone about it so that someone else can learn from your mistakes? Yes? Then give us a call, and let me write your story.

Opened to guests in 1984, Knysna’s Featherbed Nature Reserve quickly grew into one of the Garden Route’s biggest tourism attractions. Martin Hatchuel takes a look at its origins and early history under its founder, William Smith.

“In the article... researcher and writer Martin Hatchuel delves into the life of William Smith, one of South Africa's most recognisable teachers. Hatchuel charts Smith's entrepreneurial flair in education and tourism and digs into the archive to reveal some fantastic photographs of Smith growing up” - The Heritage Portal

On the 25th of April, 2019, South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa invested the country’s (and Knysna’s!) best-known teacher - William Smith - with the nation’s Order of the Baobab class 2: Grand Counsellor of the Order of the Baobab (Silver). 

This order is given to South African citizens who’ve gone “well above and beyond the ordinary call of duty” in business, the economy, science, medicine, technological innovation, or community service.

So how did Smith’s now famous teaching career evolve?

Total commitment and a love for animals drives this Plettenberg Bay woman to try and change the law about whether animals can own the land on which they live, and so protect their habitat forever.

Cost-effective use of a new website and posters marked with QR codes: an inexpensive method of upgrading displays and extending the reach of a small community-owned museum.

QR code links history in the field (well - in the sea!) to the Knysna Museum