Jack Cockerill was working for the Chester Diamond Drilling Company when he was engaged on a contract at the Leicester Mine, on one of the kimberlite pipes found on the farm ‘Holpan’ between Windsorton Road and Barkly West in the Northern Cape. He was housed in bachelor quarters on the farm and came into contact with the family of Willie Wienand, who was in the cartage business in the area. Romance blossomed with Willie’s daughter Gladys May Wienand, and Jack became attracted to the lifestyle of alluvial diamond digging. He left Leicester Mine, applied for a digger’s licence and set up on his own dig. This account of Jack’s life as a digger was written by his daughter, Judy, and is part of our family history. [Olwyn Garratt]
My Dad’s diggings were on a farm belonging to Mr David (Dawie) Wright. The area was proclaimed and diggers had to be of good standing to be considered eligible to be granted a licence. The Holpan diggings were not deep and they did not require a mining inspector to approve them. Although they were loosely termed alluvial diggings they were not on a river and the water required for the running of the washing plant had to be brought in by donkey wagon and stored in a tank on a raised platform.
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