Stanley's 'Liggie' 

Stanley de Wit, born and bred in Ladismith,  installed a light on the cliffs of Elandsberg.  Stanley was a keen mountaineer and during several trips up the mountain he noticed a perennial stream cascading down a vertical rock.  This made him hit upon the idea of installing a light which could burn permanently and could be seen from town.  The light is situated at the turning point of the Elandsberg hiking trail.  It's a stiff climb of 6,1km and 1430m above sealevel.  It takes about 3 - 4 hours to reach the light.

   On 31 May 1963 Stanley carted 22m of plastic pipe, electrical cables, cement and sand up the mountain to install the light.  Water was fed from the stream via the plastic pipe onto a vertical wheel which in turn was connected to a bicycle dynamo, which was attached to a bicycle light with an electrical cable, fixed to a rock.   It was probably the smallest hydro-electric unit in the world that ran day-and-night   - as long as the water supply was constant. 

Stanley maintained the light for 30 years, undertaking 278 trips of 13,93km each, totalling 3872,54km!  He kept this up till his legs told him that it was time to stop and volunteers took over the job of looking after his light.  He tells the story of the troupe of baboons who started a boikot against him at one stage, perhaps because he and his light were too much in the limelight!  One morning he started climbing at 04:00 because it became too hot during the day.  He had a torch with him, but as soon as it was light enough, he hid it between two flat stones.  He had heard the baboons earlier on, but could not see them because of fog.  When he returned later in the day, the stones were moved and the torch was missing.  He reckoned that they must have watched him from afar to obtain the nice shining object.  Although he had searched for it for a long time, he could never find his missing torch.  Tongue-in-the-cheek, Stanley said that he climbed up to the light more often than necessary to take the baboons batteries for the torch.

The bicycle light was later replaced by two 24V motorcar lights and the dynamo was replaced with an alternator.   A solar panel was installed to provide power for the light to start again, after a drought, when there was running water again.

"Stanley se liggie" is not only a beacon for the Ladismith people, but is well-known far outside the borders of the district.  Stanley was honoured by a shoe-factory in Tulbagh when they dedicated their 10 000th pair of 'velskoene' to him.  On the box the following was printed:  "Stanley se Velskoen" with a sketch of Elandsberg, the light and Towerkop.