Drain brain…

CHRIS BENNETT has been digging up some interesting facts about sewers…

A FRIEND, George, recently left the South Coast for the bleak wilderness of Gauteng. This was in the nature of his work, which, put at its most simple, is fixing sewerage systems. He has been working on the new plant near the northbound Shelly Beach off-ramp from the R61.

He was scheduled to start work in October last year, but sundry delays meant he started about December. In the meantime he rid the Southern Ocean of the awful Japanese whaling fleet; some people have more interesting hobbies than computer games. I should add that his skills in engineering the niceties of sewerage farms did not play a role with the whalers. Not directly, anyway. However there may have been an overlap of vocabulary here and there.

While working in the UK a few years ago he was required to dive in the accumulated sludge of British opinion. George is a qualified diver.

Perhaps George’s calling, and it is an extreme calling, is a little more than most could comprehend, let alone ponder.

They are interesting things, sewers; sometime source of mirth for the less mature; sometime sauce of wit for the more.

The earliest underground sewers discovered by archaeologists are in the regularly planned cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished in the northwest region of the Indian Subcontinent from 3300–1300 BC, its mature period being 2600–1900 BC.

In ancient Rome, the Cloaca Maxima (the Greatest Drain), considered a marvel of engineering, disgorged into the Tiber river. Its construction is believed to date from about 660BC. In ancient China, sewers existed in various cities such as Linzi.

In medieval European cities, small natural waterways used for carrying off wastewater were eventually covered over and functioned as sewers. London's River Fleet is such a system. For many years Fleet Street was home to the greatest newspapers in the English language, a thought which in itself is not without implication.

Open drains along the centre of some streets were known as kennels (canals or channels). The nineteenth century brick-vaulted sewer system of Paris offers tours for tourists (the vain brain drain?).

The image of the sewer recurs in European culture as they were often used as hiding places or routes of escape by the scorned or the hunted, including partisans and resistance fighters in WWII. Fighting erupted in the sewers during the Battle of Stalingrad.

The system in my village has recently been upgraded. Odd word, that. Especially given that the sewerage system is a metaphor for the ultimate degradation. Maybe that tells us something about cellphones.

The maintenance of such infrastructures, especially power supply, water supply and the drains, remains one of the cornerstones of a civilisation. To be without power is an inconvenience; to be without water is somewhat worse; to be without drains is one notch down, if you see what I mean.

We are fortunate in having workers (silly word, that) who ensure that these amenities are at our disposal.

Most of the time.

Research for this column was in Wikipedia and the Macmillan Family Encyclopedia; Macmillan, London, 1984.

CB

4/3/11