My Grand Niece

It's difficult to comprehend that this beautiful young lady who is 14 years my junior is my Half Grand Niece, her Great Grandfather is my Father or was should I say, if he were alive now he would be 117 years old.

South African English

Another E-mail I received about South African English, brings back some memories:

South African English... let it not be said that we're not unique!

How do you explain the word "sommer" to someone who is not South African? It's not only a foreign word, it's a foreign concept. Perhaps the English never do anything "just sommer". There really is no equivalent.... "Why are you laughing? Just sommer."

"Bakkie" is another one, very useful around this house for all sizes and shapes of containers and dishes. Also used for what they call "utes" in OZ or "pickup" in England. I find it an indispensable word.

We all know "voetstoots" of course. It's been officially adopted into South African English. There's no concise, one-word equivalent in English. "As is" just doesn't hack it. And it's such a humorous word, conjuring up images of pushing that brand new car home...

There's no good English word for "dwaal". It doesn't mean dream, or daze. It's close to absent-mindedness, but that's not quite it. Being in one so often myself, I'm not likely to stop using it.

I think "gogga" is the most delightful word for insect I've ever heard. Children all over the world should use it. "Insect" just doesn't stand a chance.

And I think "moffie" is a far better word than all those embarrassed English attempts at defining a homosexual: gay, queer, poofter... none of them are half as expressive. Somehow "moffie" doesn't sound as derogatory either.

And then there's "gatvol". OK, I know it's very rude. But it's so very expressive, nê?
"Fed up" doesn't have half the impact. "Gatvol" is a word used more frequently than ever in the workplace these days, with increasing intensity.

While we're on the subject, another phrase which outstrips any English attempt is "Hy sal sy gat sien". "He'll get his come-uppance" definitely lacks the relish in comparison.

"Donder" is another very useful word, used as an all-purpose swearword, which again has no good English translation. Used as a verb, it can express any degree of roughing up. As a noun, it is a pejorative, as they politely say in dictionaries, to mean whatever you want it to mean. And there's no good translation for "skiet-en-donder" either.

It says something about the English that they have no word for "jol". Probably the dictionary compilers regard it as slang, but it's widely used for "Going out on the town, kicking up your heels, enjoying yourself”.    Although curiously, the word "Yule" in Yuletide is related to "jol" and derived from Old English. So somewhere along the line, the English forgot how to "jol". 

How do you explain the passion of "lekker!"? "Wow last night was a "lekker jol".

I've yet to meet a South African over the age of two who doesn't use the word "muti". Translation is impossible - "witches potion" is about the nearest I can get. It needs a long cultural historical explanation. Between "muti" and the pedantic "medication", there's simply no contest.

And of course, my personal favourite "Kak en betaal" , which just says it all, doesn't it? A bland English translation would be "Cough and pay", or "Breathe and pay". But it just doesn't cut it, does it? Not by a long drop.

Other words that come to mind: "jou bliksem", "wag 'n bietjie", "nie so haastig nie", "just now", "sakkie-sakkie music", "ou swaer", "Ya, nee", and one of my personal favourites, "Poephol".

"Dudu". Telling your infant to "go to bed" is just not the same as, "Go dudu now, my baby!"

How about “bliksem"? "I'm going to bliksem you!". Both wonderful Afrikaans expressions with nothing to compare in the English language, at least nothing that gives the same satisfaction.

"Mielie pap" - there is no word like "pap", here. They have porridge, and when they say porridge, they mean oats. There's no Maltabela, no Tasty Wheat, No Creemy Meal... in other words, there's no "pap"!

"Mislik" - such a 'lekker' word. "Why are you so mislik, you little skelm?"
Which brings us to "skelm" - here you just get "baddies", but that doesn't have the same sneaky connotation of a proper skelm, does it?!

And "snot-klap"... fabulous word! "Do you want a snot-klap?" How would you say that in English? "I'll slap you so hard the snot will fly!"? It's just not the same.

"Loskop" is another favourite. The English just don't understand when I say, "Sorry, I forgot - I'm such a loskop!"

And finally..... "moer". There simply isn't a word here that denotes the feeling of dread behind the phrase "If you don't clean your room, I'll moer you!"
 

Random Kak by Trevor Romain

A nostalgic walk home from The Hill High school to Linmeyer with Google Maps

I love Google Maps, I was chatting to one of the ladies on the Hill High website and she was telling me where she lives, so I Googled it and then took a nostalgic walk through the South.  Probably a walk I have not done for many many years and will more than likely never do in real life again.

Hill High

If you have been on Google Maps you will know how you can walk by “mouse” through the streets in the map.   So I walked home from School (Hill High), stopping at all the houses where my friends lived to see what had changed.  I noticed that most of the houses that used to have open gardens, all had walls now with fences, but really nicely done so that you could still see the house, not like in some streets in the Northern Suburbs, where the houses had been built up with really high walls and electric fencing.  Although walking back now and I see there are a few with 8 foot walls and electric fencing.

So we (the mouse & I) walked up Plinlimon Road, passing house after house till we get to “Linmeyer Gardens” which does not seem to have visibly changed – I mostly always walked home from school on the left hand side of the road.  And then when we got to the end of Linmeyer Gardens we used to cross over onto the right hand side, by Quaggashoek Road, Stuart used to lived there from as far back as I can remember.

The Top Shops in Linmeyer

We would then either cross over the veld, or cross by the traffic light by the top shops, which also has some really good memories.  The guy who owned the shops was a Greek guy called Tommy, and yes he was one of those that Barry Hilton always talks about that never gave you your change if it was 1c or 2c or even in those days ½c, he would say take “chappies”, I’ve got no change.

Outside of the shops he had a Big Bubble Gum machine in the shape of a rocket; I guess it was big because we were so small.  David P ran off with the machine the one day, and Tommy ran after him, from that day forward the machine was always chained to the door or somewhere with a big lock.

Paraffin and the One Arm Bandit

The first gadget that Tommy had in his shops was a “one arm bandit” which now thinking about it was illegal in the 70’s, but then so much in that shop would have been illegal today.  So the “one arm bandit” cherry machine was moved into a room at the back of the shop, where they kept the big drum of paraffin.  The maid would send us up to the shop regularly to get a bottle of paraffin for the primus stove.  You had to take your own bottle and there was a pump where you would pump the paraffin into your bottle, I loved the smell – you can understand why kids become hooked on smells.  If we weren’t sent for paraffin, then it would be “10 Lexington” (cigarettes) and a box of matches.

My dad would send us to the shop to either get Tobacco, Cigarillo’s or Minerals (Ginger ale and the likes).  For mom it would be Bread & Milk or minerals.  The Café was the greatest thing as they would be open from early in the morning till about 7 or 8 p.m., all day Saturday and to start with only in the mornings on a Sunday, then Tommy would close for lunch on a Sunday and re-open later in the afternoon.

There was also a Café, come Fish & Chips shop on the right hand side of the road at the bottom.

Pin Ball Machines

To entice the youngsters to spend their money in his shop, Tommy got in some pinball machines.  They were put into the shop on the right hand side by the magazines.  If you wanted to meet boys, you knew they would more than likely be playing pinball, or if you wanted to show off you would play too, 10c a game.  I remember heading off to the shops on a Friday evening with Charlene, when we were supposed to be at Y.P. back in ’79 – ’80 when young girls could still walk around without any harm coming to them.   But this could lead into a whole other story.

So getting back to the walk

So if you walked down “Johan Meyer Street” which is where Tommy’s shop was situated on the right hand corner, I think he was number 1, you would pass the bus stop, next to the bus stop was the “United Building Society”, then the “Green Grocer”, Vintage (Mainly a stationary shop) he would order in our overseas magazines for us, my sister used to get “Jackie” from the UK and I would get “Tammy”.  Mr & Mrs Shaw were the owners.

Next door to “Vintage” was the hairdresser, Sandy’s mom always got her hair done there, then next door to that was “Paulwin” which was like an ornament shop but sold all kinds of stuff, bric-a-brac and then last but not least on the Corner was the butcher, loads of guys dressed in white coats and boots carrying dead animals (cows & sheep) into the shop and cutting them into the cuts of meat that people would then buy.  Often if you wanted a certain cut, they would go and fetch the whole sheep or cow from the back and cut it up in front of you.

From what I can see on Google Maps, the UBS is now a hairdresser, the green grocer a movie rental place and “vintage” is now the infamous “McCoys Pub”, I believe owned by “Sean Mc Coy” who went to Hill High and frequented by many old Hill High pupils, a few pool tables I would imagine in the shop that used to be the hairdresser.  “Paulwin” is a beauty salon and the butchers a bead place – but who knows whether that is still right today as you never know how old the Google satellite maps are.

Across the road from Tommy, the corner shop – I cannot remember what was there, but I remember when it became the Pizza shop, it was like the first Pizza shop in South Africa to me, it opened in about ’76.  You could either get take-away or eat in.  Next door was the Chemist, owned by the same guy for years and year until he died, and now I can’t remember his name, Jewish guy.   Carol used to have an account at the Chemist and because her mom & dad had got divorced and she stayed with her dad, he paid the account, so she would buy make up and all kinds of stuff.   And we will never forget the day that Morné asked me to go and by “Female Stuff” for his mom as he was too embarrassed, which of course I don’t blame him, which mother asks her 6 ft hunky son to go and buy her woman’s stuff.  If she ever wonders why he is now gay, well I guess that is just part of it.

Next door to the chemist was a dry-cleaners and then a small hardware or lock-smith and of course then the “Linmeyer Bakery”, which when you walked past you would get all the wonderful smells.  Freshly baked hot rolls, Biscuits, my favourite were petty-fours although the “La Rochelle Bakery” made much nicer ones.

I can’t remember what was in the next two shops before the “Golden Reef Café, fish & Chips shop”, but I remember when the Portuguese restaurant opened there in the late 70’s early 80’s.  Urban legend has it that in some fish & chips shops in South Africa, they never changed the oil used for frying the fish & chips, and then when clients kept getting sick, the police came in and made them drain the oil and they found a dead cat!  I see it is now called Zanzi Superette.

So continuing our Nostalgic walk through the streets of Linmeyer, there was another café at the bottom of Linmeyer in Elizabeth street, below the “Greenhill’s” flats that were owned by George’s dad, George was a guy in our class and I can’t remember what his surname was, he loved the girls, especially the blonde ones.   The Linmeyer post office was down there too, we would often go and fetch the post for my mom & dad, although the post was delivered to street addresses, so people would have a box address too, especially if you did not want people to know where you lived.

Going back to the Butcher and the Golden Reef Café, which were on alternate corners of Risi Avenue and Johan Meyer street, at the butchers you would turn right and walk up, originally back in the day there was an empty plot on the corner of Michael street and Risi Avenue, on which they built a temporary fire station, the fire station was linked to the main fire station in Turffontein, and during the week in winter they would send a team over to Linmeyer so they were closer to the hills where fires always broke out.  Incidentally it was used for Girl Guides on a Saturday, Y.P. on a Friday night somehow linked to the Rosettenville Baptist church and then on Sundays for Sunday school.

Across the road from the fire station were two empty plots of land separated by a street called “Post Street”.  When you turned left into Michael Street from Risi Avenue, we were the 2^nd house on the right hand side, although we were the first house in Michael Street as the one next door’s address was in Risi Avenue.   Our house was a modest 3 bed roomed, 1 bathroom house on a ¼ acre stand, what sold my dad on the house was the fact that it had a beautiful panorama window in the lounge which looked over the empty plot in front, and you had a view over the Linmeyer hills as far as Alberton.  Remember in those days there was no TV so I guess looking out the window was there TV.

Michael Street

After having moved out of Linmeyer for the final time when I got married in 1995, I never walked those streets again, even when visiting my mom.  I often used to think of buying the house from her and then renovating it to be how I wanted to look.  However when my sister finally convinced her to sell up in 1998, and move in with them – we had already bought so Linmeyer was no longer my home.   The Estate Agent who sold the house to relations of hers, got it for a song (all in cahoots with one another), and then basically changed the whole look of the house.  Because they had paid next to nothing for it, they had the money to put in a pool and do all kinds of renovations. *Feeling Sad*  My dad was in construction so had already done a number of alterations, adding a 4^th bedroom and an extra bathroom and utility room out the back.

I don’t know what changes they made to the inside or the back of the house, but from the front you can see that the panorama window was taken out and replaced with a big glass sliding door that leads down to the pool, however the beautiful view of the open veld is gone, you can no longer see down to the main road because a monstrosity of a town house complex “Silva Villas” has been built on the two plots of land, incorporating Post Street with it.  And then what looks like visitor parking for the complex, right opposite our old house.

What amazes me is how vividly clear the memories are of all the places and the houses.  Watch out for the next post on walking through the streets of Linmeyer. 

"Dance the Night Away"...

I did a post a while ago about the Clubs in Jo'burg, growing up in the late 70's and 80's it was the thing to do

on the week-ends, especially on Friday nights.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I probably went to my first "adult" disco when I was 13 years old, and the only reason we go in, was because we were with members of the "La Rochelle United" gang, and no one would turn them away!  I even remember it was a Wednesday night, how the hell I got out of the house that night I have no idea, but I am sure my friend Charlene gave them some kind of story.

It was Charlene, myself and her Spanish friend, if I remember correctly i think her name was Jaunita, she didn't speak English very well and spoke very fast all I remember was "Hey Pa" and pronounced P-u as in umbrella.  We walked from my house in Linmeyer to La Rochelle and then go into someone's car and went to a nighclub called "Tramps" at the "Diplomat Hotel"  on the corner of Klein & Bree Streets.  They used to give out free passes in the Tonight section of the Star to get in for free during the week.

They used to run "Teenage Disco's" on a Saturday afternoon at which no alcohol was sold to anyone under 18, we used to frequent "Plumb Crazy" which if I remember correctly was off the corner of Loveday and Jeppe street, it was one of the nicer disco's and they played good music.  My mom would not allow us to go to disco's so we told her were going ice-skating at the Carlton, she would drop us off (never asked why we didn't have thick socks with us), we would go into the toilets at the Carlton, paste on the make-up and then run all the way from Commissioner street down to Jeppe, and after the disco run all the way back.  I think eventually we just caught the bus into town on our own and told her we were going to movies at the Kine Center.

Besides "Plumb Crazy", "Club Chicago" also had a teen disco on a Saturday, that was were our friend Marius got badly beaten up by some of the La Rochelle united gang, because they fancied Charlene and he was dancing with her, no wonder he turned Gay (forgive me Marius).

Later when we were old enough to go to Disco's legitimately we must have gone to everyone in Jo'burg, Hilbrow, Sandton, Randburg and Pretoria.  Here are a few that I remember:-

"Just for Kicks" - A bit of a scummy joint somewhere near to the City Hall in Jo'burg, I remember walking from the Carlton Center in the middle of the night to meet friends there, this was probably round 1982, Crime was starting to pick up and either way a young girl should not be walking in the city at night on her own, so I carried a toy gun in my pocket just in case.  I'll never forget the embarrassment when I was searched going into the disco.  Luckily they didn't make me hand it in :)

"Ace of Clubs" - A really classy disco, and Thursday nights was ladies night, drinks half price and a Male stripper.

"Q's Supper Club" - Pink Patent leather I think the seats were.

"Xanadu" - A dance floor straight out of Saturday night Fever, very cool.

"Caesars Palace" in Braamfontein - Classy Place

"Raffles Night Club" in the Rand International Hotel in Bree Street, also a very classy place sister to Raffles at Sun City in those days.

There were so many clubs in Hilbrow, "Chelsea Underground", "Bela Napoli" and my mind has gone blank ... will have to come back to this.

In Hyde Park Shopping Center there was "Sasha's Singles Club" a really nice intimate classy place, it later moved to the Hyde Park hotel and changed names a few time, eventually became quite a rough place.

"Jacqueline's" in Pretoria, now that was a nice place, although the guys weren't as hot as Jo'burg guys!

"The Black Orchid" in Sandton - the girls were quite stuck up there

I'll have to continue this post when I can remember the names of the other places we frequented, let me know if you can think of any!