Now Media originator John Marsh was an acclaimed maritime journalist whose superb investigative skills and vast network of contacts enabled him to pen a bestseller – Skeleton Coast. With the profits, he and his wife Leona founded the Travel Promotion Organisation, still making headlines as Now Media 55 years later. Young John Marsh was only nine years old when he began collecting photographs of ships. He was still a pupil at Sea Point Boys’ High School when he supplied the Cape Argus with a photo, taken with his Brownie camera, of a ship called the Vestris that sank in the Caribbean after it had left Cape Town. The editor, recognising Marsh’s passion, commissioned him to write a weekly column on famous vessels that called at the Cape. He was appointed full-time shipping editor in 1933 when he was only 19 years old. For over 20 years he reported on major maritime deals, as well as portraying the human interest stories of ordinary crew and passengers. He was always ready to try something new and organised the first actuality broadcast at sea for South African radio listeners. Transit records were big news then, and he had a rapt audience for his cuttingedge reports from the record-breaking voyage of the Stirling Castle, the biggest Union Castle ship yet built. Throughout his career he took numerous maritime photographs and even got special permission from the naval authorities to photograph most of the ships that called at Cape Town during the first years of WWII. Many of these vessels later became war casualties and Marsh’s photographs are their sole surviving records. As always, he kept accurate records, and if the vessel was sunk, he recorded the co-ordinates, the U-Boat that sank it and even the name of the U-Boat’s captain. His stories reached a wide audience – not only Cape Argus subscribers, but also readers of his meticulously researched books that included ‘No Pathway Here’, based on his experiences as the sole Press representative on the secret South African expedition to annex the Prince Edward Islands in 1948. Marsh’s most lucrative publication, however, was the dramatic tale of the Dunedin Star shipwreck off the Namibian coast. This 13000 ton British Blue Star liner was carrying passengers and war munitions to the Middle East when it ran aground in November 1942. The SA Naval Forces, Air Force, Army, Police, Railways and Harbours and the Royal Navy all got involved in independent rescue missions. With the backing of Field Marshall Jan Smuts, Marsh recounted the many dramatic events that took place over six weeks until the exhausted survivors and their rescuers finally arrived in Windhoek on Christmas Eve. Marsh invested the book’s profits in setting up the Johannesburg-based Travel Promotion Organisation, founded in 1953 with his wife Leona. The dynamic couple were committed to promoting travel and trade to and from the Southern African region; they believed this could bring about better understanding across national borders. The company mission, just as valid today, was to deliver more than clients expected, using innovative products that set standards in niche markets. Their ‘Guide to Southern Africa and the World’ was the first of its kind and was soon followed by a monthly travel magazine called ‘Let’s Go’. Recognising that travel consultants did not have much time to read lengthy articles, they pioneered the idea of the quick-read newspaper filled with trade news. Travel News Weekly was born in the ’60s with the concept that every consultant would get a personalised copy with the very latest stories. To make the news even more immediate they set up printing works on site so that these "quickread" newspapers could be written, laid out, printed and hand-delivered on the same day – something not seen before or elsewhere in busines s to business publishing. Marsh also disapproved of any edition being more than four pages: “If they take it home because they don’t have time to read it in the office, we have lost the impact,” he explained. He also vigorously pursued a number of campaigns, ranging from making Cape Town a centre for historical ships, to the reintroduction of low-cost sailing cargo ships to help create more jobs. He encouraged the building of Cape Town's Duncan Dock and its Sturrock Dry Dock. Long before Coega, he campaigned for a pier from Cape Town to Robben Island to attract the largest bulk carriers in the world. He also tried to get the owners of the Queen Elizabeth liner to use her for a hotel ship in Luanda in the early ‘70s. Well before containerisation officially came to SA in 1976, he launched a fortnightly newspaper on the subject and patented a Rail-on Railoff system to speed up the discharge of containers. He also established the Ship Information Service which advertised that anyone could ask him any reasonable question about any ship and expect an answer. In 1984 Marsh semi-retired and began cataloguing his vast collection of 19000 photographic negatives of 9200 ships, mainly taken between 1921 and 1953. He died in his Johannesburg library in 1996 surrounded by this collection. Leona continued her husband’s work until in 2003 illness forced her to retire only a few weeks before her 50th anniversary with the company they had founded together. The prints, books and records were all donated to Iziko Museums of Cape Town after her death. They are now suitably housed in the old Union Castle building at the V&A Waterfront. The John H. Marsh Maritime Collection has become internationally renowned as a superb maritime resource and the Centre receives an average three to five queries daily. Visitors have included former British PM Margaret Thatcher and former Falklands War base commander Peter Anderson-Withy. Fifty years on, with a staff of 80 and custom-built premises in Illovo, Johannesburg, Now Media continues to innovate as technology opens up fresh possibilities. The electronic trade directories, Cargo Info Africa and Travelinfo, have won the Magazine Publishers’ Association Awards for the best business-to-business web site in South Africa. In addition, three niche electronic publications were launched this year – Customs Buzz, Perishable Buzz and Into Africa Buzz – with a growing readership underscoring their relevance. Coinciding with FTW’s milestone anniversary, John’s grandson Anton Marsh has been appointed deputy divisional head of the freight division with special responsibility for the development of online media.
