Please or Register to create posts and topics.

My writings.

Page 1 of 22Next

I know I am inclined to throw in the non-philatelic item and I suspect that this is Steve's way of pushing me into a corner out of sight but I do intend to take full advantage of the situation and will attempt to post one item per day for as long as I am able.  It will not all be new material and it will not all be South African but I will do my best to keep within the editor's boundary markers.  Difficult where to start but I have chosen this one as it was written within a few weeks of arriving in South Africa in November 1966.  At the time Liz and myself were running 'Pickin Chicken Dairy Den' a roadhouse on the old airport road in Bedfordview.  I hope I can renew a few old memories.  

Jamie.

Uploaded files:
  • SAPC136.jpg

Jamie, what an excellent opening effort. I enjoyed that. It reminded me both of my time in Jo'burg when I was the 'Prince of Hillbrow' and of a poem I wrote in Brussels many years ago when I was alone and alienated, trying to hitch-hike from Oslo to Cape Town. HA! It was Easter weekend and I was sitting beneath the statue of a Belgian notable. I mused then that "when the Vandals and Visigoths return, he will stand without moving and watch Brussels burn".

You now own this corner. You are free to fly, philatelically and poetically! Stretch those wings!

You show me yours and I will show you mine!   That is Poetry!

Jamie

This is beautiful.

My first experiences of South Africa, some fifteen years later than your arrival are very mixed. On the positive side and due to all the Rhodesians having arrived, we couldn't find a flat to rent. We were looking mostly in the Hillbrow area. I had about $15K all in cash, as I couldn't get a bank account as yet, put them in a brown bag, took a chance and put it down as a deposit for a house in Parkview. At the time the Rand was stronger than the dollar (singing... those were the days my friend).  You should have seen the face of the agent, when we gave them the cash rather than a check! That was the last time I had a spare rand or dollar for maybe more than 15 years. A year or two later Botha crossed the Rubicon and interest rates were eating most of my salary, interest rates on my car jumping to 36% and on the bond from 6.5% to 22%!.

On the negative side soon I was to witness a killing. The first of two. I was walking around the Carlton Center and there was I think was a Standard Bank or Nedbank that was being robbed. The police were on the spot within literally seconds. One of the robbers took a hostage. A police woman walked next to him ,  put her gun on his head  and shot him point blank. Hostage was freed and the robber ended up on the pavement partially covered with a piece of cardboard, blood and brains on the pavement...  The banks started spending money on security and crime moved to the suburbs and small shops...

We lived in beautiful surroundings, with Zoo Lake next to us, made a lot of new friends and the growing family had a good time. Stuck with it in good times and bad times for more than 26 years until a brutal economy forced me to leave. I miss the place terribly. I still think South Africa is one of the best places in the world. Brutal economics, brutal political system, but beautiful place and people.

I have a Rhodesian one for you but that will come later.  I have fond memories of the Carlton Center, all of the stamp shops. especially the dealers, Peter V', Kenny, Nigal, Angus, could go on for ever.  Zoo lake, selling paintings on a Sunday morning, I fed 2,500 people on the parkland opposite the zoo, that was for the South African games, can't remember the year but they made a compound for me surrounded by barbed wire fence two rolls high.  I had seven buffets and just fed people; when I asked the organiser where the rest were she informed me that I had finished the 2,500 bowlers (remember the stamps?).  By the way just after I got there I was paying R1.52 for a British pound!  Remember the British fish & chip shop and Excelsior? Books in Hillbrow?  Don't get me started!

 

 

Uploaded files:
  • SAPC137.jpg

Very nice again, Jamie. My mountain rambles were always either Bains Kloof or the Cedarberg.

Yannis, in about 1985 I was living in 34 Dundalk Road, Parkview. The house was in a bland architectural style I call 'Swiss Continental'. It was known as 'The Wall' because of its outer wall's colourful make-over into an Ndebele design. You may remember it.  If you stepped out of a gap in the bottom garden fence all you had to do was cross the road and the lake lay before you. It was the home of Philip Copeman and the headquarters of his nascent Pink Software. We liked to say The Wall was Philip's contribution to the downfall of P W Botha! I recall hearing lions in the Zoo roaring at night. The Jo'burg winters were bitter and in walking across the suburb to a colleague's house I would wear a blanket over my shoulders to keep warm. In the dark I looked just like an African. In passing them in the street they would invariably express some surprise when at the last second they realised that this familiar huddled shape before them was not black but white. Regarding the Rand ROE, I removed much of my assets from SA when it was R4 to the GBP £1. A friend's wife warned me that I was making a huge mistake. The Rand would recover, she said. It never did.

Steve, the world is sometimes small! I remember the house. We lived in Westmeath which was from memory the one parallel to Dundalk or maybe one street up. All the streets in Parkview were named after Irish Towns. We used to walk daily to Zoo Lake with the kids and the dogs. 

I remember the "Pink Sofware"  as they were a very good example of "marketing" and still refer to them when I talk to people about marketing! 

@Jamie  The paintings part at Zoo Lake was my favourite as well as the Excelsior Bookshop. Years later going to Hydepark for books, as Hillbrow went down.

 

 

Loving the banter!  Can't wait until tonight to post again.  So...................

I fitted the kitchen out in Albert Street where they could stay at night and have a meal but they never stayed - made too much money on the streets.  The organisers worked it out at R150 per day (and that was in in the 1990's) - we couldn't compete.

Uploaded files:
  • SAPC143.jpg

It gets better, Jamie. Many thanks for reminding me of my life once lived.

We all have some resentment at having to deal with the street car parkers. My Mom had a favourite in the Howard's Centre, Pinelands, a young Congolese man with a family. His dream was to go to England "because they have Adult Education Classes"! On one of my last trips to Cape Town I was parking the car when an old Coloured man started shouting directions to me that were peppered with "Bass, baas, Master, master". I got chatting to him and learned that like many Coloured people he was more bitter about ANC policies than with those of the previous Apartheid regime. One thing led to another and he told me that he had worked as a company messenger in Cape Town. Taking a chance, I asked him "Can you remember which was the Black counter in the Main Post Office." "Counter Number Three" came the immediate answer. "And we had to walk around the Post Office to go in at the back on the Parade side because they wouldn't let us walk through the Hall!". I tipped him generously for that gem of postal history.

Just zoomed back from New York!  Thought we might take a trip down to Cape Town now before I go to bed.

Uploaded files:
  • SAPC144.jpg
Page 1 of 22Next