Farewell Old Friend ...

Robert Laing
28 July 2006 07:14 Communist Alert!

Johannesburg’s Top Star drive-in has closed after 48 years and will literally vanish without a trace over the next three years.Remember, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here.Joe Bob Briggs, the cult drive-in movie critic of Grapevine, Texas, concluded his reviews with a paragraph like that whenever a drive-in died to make room for a “six-screen indoor-bullstuff puke-plex”.The last flik I checked at the Top Star was Sweeney!, which www.imdb.com says came out in 1977.

Considering I haven’t been to the Top Star in nearly 30 years, I can’t claim to be filled with grief. Sweeney! was a film spin-off of a BBC series the SABC dubbed into Blitspatrollie. My parents were huge fans and wanted to see what the actors sounded like in their original cockney. The reason this movie stuck in my mind is it was cited as a major influence by cop-turned-bank-robber André Stander.
It never inspired me to do anything great.I’m no drive-in guy. I’ve never gotten my parents’ generation’s fetish about wanting to do everything in a car. Statistically, nearly everyone my age was conceived in the back of a car, invariably at a drive-in.As a kid, I couldn’t understand why eating out meant the White Pigeon Roadhouse where fine dining was a waiter clipping a tray on the driver’s door.

Going to the movies meant the drive-in. This involved a sordid business of hiding in the boot with a horde of other kids. This was partly to evade the age-restriction police, and also because it was before the days of charging a flat rate per car. Once word got around that a family was going to the drive-in, every brat in the neighbourhood invited him-or herself along. So to keep things affordable for pa, kids got sneaked past the ticket office in the boot.None of those 2 to 18 age restriction fliks had any ill effect on us six-year -olds.
Apartheid censors cut all the nudity out and we didn’t watch the violence. We were too busy running around spying on other kids getting conceived in the backs of cars.For those of you who mourn the Top Star, take consolation from its noble death.

Some say drive-ins declined because they abandoned their specialty low-budget skop, skiet en donner for mainstream block-blusters. The Top Star’s last picture show was Running Scared, which, from its imdb.com description, sounds like a cert for Joe Bob Briggs’s four out of four stars. The Motion Picture Association of America slapped an R-rating on it “for pervasive strong brutal violence and language, sexuality and drug content”.This flik met all four of Joe Bob’s criteria for an ace drive-in movie right there.

Furthermore, the Top Star did not die to make way for any “multi-screen barfo-plex”. Its new owner, JSE-listed DRDGold, expects to extract four tons of gold from the five million tons of yellow sand in its underlying mine dump. Clearing the mine dump will open valuable real-estate space in Selby.It is also likely to raise property prices in the southern suburbs which in the past were blighted by the fine dust from surrounding mine dumps. I’m sure Joe Bob would agree that far from being a “Communist Alert!”, the Top Star’s demise is a victory for capitalism.I have just one word for anyone who insists on getting weepy eyed over the Top Star: Velskoen.

The Velskoen is now Johannesburg’s sole surviving drive-in, probably giving this city one more drive-in than Grapevine, Texas, now has.Though columnist John Bloom still uses the pseudonym Joe Bob Briggs, he has long stopped writing in the persona of a redneck enthusing about R-rated zombie chainsaw-fu kak.

The datelines of his recent columns are New York rather than Grapevine and are stock liberal politics. His earlier drive-in reviews are very funny and can be read on the web at www.joebobbriggs.com.As someone who thinks the only good drive-in is one turned into a parking lot for a mall, preferably one with a Cinema Nouveau multiplex, I asked for comment from two people who might care -- Joe Bob Briggs and Jeremy “Ag pleez deddy won’t you take us to the drive-in” Taylor.Unfortunately, neither responded by deadline.
Taylor seems to be doing the Chicago folk circuit at the moment, and his United States agent Rich Ball sent me this: “Sorry to hear about the Drive-In.

We don’t have many of them left here either. Time was when fundamentalist preachers railed against them as dens of iniquity and passion pits. God has taken about half a century to answer their prayers. Well, God does move in mysterious ways ...”

The 70's - Remember "Springbok Radio"

Sixteen men on a dead man's ship ... words from McCulley Workshops' best hit "The Buccaneer" - listening to Springbok Radio in the 70's, we were all very proud of South African music and it would be played over and over that most of the time you never even new that other music existed.

On Friday night round midnight David Gresham would do the Top 40 and we would all try and stay awake for it to find out who would be the Number 1 this week, but inevitabally we would fall asleep and have to wait until Saturday afternoon for a repeat of the show.

We had no TV in the early seventies so the radio was our only source of intertainment, and especially in winter when the only warm place in our cold house was between the sheets. The radio would be on just loud enough for us to hear it without mom & dad being able to hear it, else they would come and turn it off.

I remember also listening to the horror stories on "the destined hour" and having nightmares for weeks afterwards, especially the story of the little girl who picked a flower off someones grave and woke up the next day with scratch marks on her cheek. Then there was the story of the little girl who's stepmother hated her and let her play in an old fridge, the poor little girl eventually suffocated inside the fridge, but the kids toys got revenge, they found the stepmother strangled and the only fingerprints were those of the gollywog.


The week-ends had the best radio programms especially Friday and Sunday nights, Friday we had "Squad Cars" - " They prowl the empty street at night, waiting in fast cars ..."
Then Sunday nights would be "The men, from the ministry", "Father dear Father", "The Navy Lark" and "Test the team" oh yes and how could we forget Saturday afternoons with "forces favourites" with all our messages for the boys on the border.

Do you remember Tuesday nights, "consider your verdict" and how can we forget the afternoon programmes "The chappie chipmunk club" and "Jet Jungle", I can see all the characters of these shows in my minds eye, but now that Television is around you wonder what they would have looked like had they been Television shows and not Radio shows?

The Gangs of Jo'burg ... 70's and 80's

When I often tell people about the "gangs" we had while growing up in the South of Jo'burg they look at me in utter disbelief, so it's only if you were around at the time in the area would you be able to relate to this.

Yet to this day there are gangs ... the gangs we grew up with at school had the following names:

There was the "La Rochelle United" who as their name suggests hailed from La Rochelle, South of Johannesburg - La Rochelle was mainly inhabited by Portuguese and Spanish speaking people, and in the mid 70's when Mozambique was at war, a lot of Portuguese speaking people from there made their way to South Africa as refugee's some to be taken in by relatives in the poorer suburbs south of Johannesburg. Although I could never understand why these people were always seen as the poorer class, especially looking back now they always ate, prawns, lobster and really nice stuff that us middle class families could never afford.




Well the La Rochelle United gang mainly attended "Forest High" school in Forest Hill, now there were 2 rival government English speaking schools in close proximity to one another, Hill High and Forest High, depending where you lived you were sent to either of these school. I remember at one stage if you drove down Verona street in Rosettenville and got to High street in the dip, all the kids that lived on the right hand side of the street and up went to Hill High and all the kids who lived on the left and up towards Towerby went to Forest High.
But it really was just a mixture. Because we were rival schools and Hill High was in a better area, we were always thought to be the better school, besides The Hill had churned out well known sportsman, doctors and even politicians.
Okay so back to the Gangs, majority of La Rochelle united attend Forest and spoke Portuguese, The Hill had the "Cockney Rebels" which was started up (I think) by the Falconer brothers. Majority of the cockney rebels would have either been born in Britain or descendants of British.
While trying to see if there was anything on the Internet about the Gangs that I am mentioning her in my blog, I came across an article and found this section very interesting, and very true of the gangs in our days especially the La Rochelle united:

"Look at the gangs in America during prohibition in the 1920s. Most of them were either Italian or Irish gangs and practically all their members were devout Catholics," Mr Wicker says.
"They would go to Mass every Sunday and they gave thousands of dollars to the Church. Yet they would think nothing of murdering rival gang members.
Al Capone even wiped out a rival gang on the feast day of St Valentine."

While these gangs may have been brutal, they still had their own twisted sense of morals. "They wouldn’t shoot someone coming out of Church and Church property was always considered holy ground.
They would even send flowers to the funeral of a rival gang member that they had murdered. Church life and gang life were two separate entities," says Mr Wicker.

As one Irish gang leader put it: "I don’t sell moonshine (alcohol) in Church, and the father doesn’t hold Communion at my speakeasy (illegal nightclub)."Even though these gangs were vicious, they still had respect for the Church and members of the clergy.

While most of the time we only heard about the Gang fights and never saw any violence there were the occasions where it happened on our doorstep. There was the time that Hill High were playing Forest High in a rugby match at Hill, the La Rochelle united arrived brandishing knives, guns and any other weapon they could find, however, the principal had been forewarned and invited the Police. The gang members out numbered the police, but not wanting to be thrown in jail and have their parents come and bail them out, most of the gang members dispersed quite quickly. So the only gang warfare that happened that day was down on the rugby field.
There were other gangs as well, but none that really impacted our school life like the Cockney Rebels and the La Rochelle united, they were:
The Lebs - (A group of Lebanese immigrants), The Greeks, The Italians, The South Hill Gang (consisted mainly of Big Afrikaans speaking guys who all played rugby). But in those days if you professed to know anyone who was part of a gang, you were left alone and people wouldn't pick on you.

Our House ...

This is the house I grew up in, Michael Street in Linmeyer - by the way it looked nothing like this when I was growing up.

There were no high walls, no big gates and the centre feature and satelite dish were not there.


Welived here from 1964, my mother sold the house in 1998 which would have been a total of 34 years that she lived there.

Jo'burg in Pictures

Rebel with a cause ...

As I said before I hated high school, at the end of Standard 8 - Charlene left to get a job, but my mother and father vowed that we would all finish high school, something they had never done. My eldest sister was studious and well liked, she was Head Librarian at the same school, which had was almost like a viced Head Girl, except most of her duties were in the Library and not on the corridoors.

My middle sister just plodded through high school and from Standard 8, took up all the home industry subjects, she ended up leaving high school at the end of standard 9 to follow a career in nursing which just never worked out.

And then there was me, like I said I hated school, my mother was determined I was going to finish high school so she got me into "Modern Methods Business College" in Eloff street, Johannesburg. It was an all girls college and churned out the finest secretaries and legal secretaries in Johannesburg.

I loved my year at the College, we were treated like ladies and besides only had classes from 8:30 to 12:30 everyday. We had small classes, there were probably about 20 girls in my class a far cry from being in a class of approximatley 40 kids, mainly with disruptive boys. For some reason I always ended up in the Bad class, the teachers either walked out on us, threw us out of class or sent us to detention.

The year at college flew past even though I had a lot of catching up to do, in all of my subjects I had to do Std 6 to matric in one year. I Aced almost everything except for Shorthand, and to this day the only thing I can write and readback in Pitmans shorthand is "Dear Sir, Thank you for your letter."

My shorthand teacher, a lovely lady who had lost her children - Paul and Rose when they were babies was a very good teacher, but shorthand was like Maths you either mastered it or you didn't. I remember getting my report from her at the end of one term and she had given me an "N" for shorthand, when I enquired what an "N" was as grades normally only went from "A" to "H" (H was below 30%), she told me that "N" was for Nought or Nil whichever I preferred, she had a wicked sense of humour.

Going to college meant a bus ride into town each morning, the journey was fun it probably took between 20 minutes and half an hour. After settling in at the college, it was established that Heather who I had known since my first day at school back in Grade 1 was at the same college as me and she was friends with Nicole who was to be in my class. So we eventually ended up catching the bus together, along with the boys who were at Wits University. Nicole was great, her mom had died when she was 15, so her dad was bringing up her and her sister - to compensate for lack of attention, her dad always gave her loads of money - so when Nicole did not feel like going to college she would pay for us to go to the Movies just so that we would bunk with her.

Anyway College was a breeze, I made friends with Pauline whos' family lived in Swaziland. She was born in Australia, but her mom & dad were both from the British Isles. She had lived almost all over the world Australia, Malaysia, Swaziland, UK as her father worked for a sugar company, so where ever there was sugar fields he could be sent to. So my first bit of travelling outside of South African borders was to Swaziland in 1981.

CHARLIE

http://www.rock.co.za/files/rabbitt_index.html

I can't find the lyrics for Charlie anywhere so I am going to have to try and remember them,

Loving you is easy,
Such a beautiful thing to do,

La la la la

As dogs go you groovy,
not as predictable as some,
well you not as paranoid as Lady Marmalade,
And you're really much more fun ...

Okay if anyone has the lyrics please send then to me !!!

Those teenage years ... Rabbitt, Rules OK

OMG ... can you believe these pictures. Anyway getting to those teenage years, the first time I went to a disco was in Standard 6, 13 years old and somehow Charlene had talked me into it. They published free tickets in the "Tonight" section of "The Star" newspaper for a disco called Tramps at the Diplomat hotel, round the corner from the Joubert park in Johannesburg.

There was a spanish girl in Charlene's class who was quite a bit older than her, she lived in La Rochelle and was friendly with the Portoguese guys from the "La Rochelle United" gang. The Europeans were much more liberated that the South Africans, so going out to a disco during the week was nothing, and their parents didn't mind, however I think if mine or Charlene's mom and dad knew we would have been killed. Anyway it didn't happen often and the only reason we had to go with the guys from La Rochelle was because they had the mode of transportation.

Okay miss goody two-shoes here started off High school going to Girl guides, just so that I could get out of having to go grocery shopping on Saturday mornings. When girl guides eventually became too boring and we were allowed to go to the Sky Rink on Saturday mornings I quit Girl guides, besides there were so really hot guys at the ice-rink.

Then they started Teen disco's on Saturday afternoons, PLUMB CRAZY was down in Jeppe street in Johannesburg, I wasn't allowed to go to disco's so my mom would drop Charlene and I off at the ice-rink, we would go running across town to the disco and then 5o'clock go running back to the ice-rink in time for my mom to pick us up. It was all very innocent, there was no booze or drugs (not that we knew about anyway), just rock 'n roll. But of course having older parents Rock 'n Roll would have been the start of all Evils.

Talking of which all through high school I was teased about my father because everyone thought he was my grandfather.

We continued going to disco's without my parents knowledge but did not make a habit of it, especially after Jo-Anne and Luis were killed on that terrible night.

Jo-anne was a friend of mine in Standard 6 and she was dating Luis San Emeterio we were all in the same class in Standard 6, we hung out during the school holidays because Charlene normally worked during school holidays. I remember one day going with Jo-anne down to Luis house in Regents park / Rewlatch area and sat around while they made out. Luis was Spanish and had only been in South Africa for a couple of years, his mom never spoke a work of English - I was really there as a pawn so that his mother didn't think there was anything going on between Jo-anne and Luis, Rui was also invited that day.

Luis was nothing to look at, but he was very talented and played the drums and the guitar - he would often come to school with his guitar and during a free period or dentention when the teachers weren't around he would strum out some Beatles number or at that time a Rabbitt number. The one we loved to listen to him play was "Charlie" by Rabbitt. Had he not been killed on that fatal night back in 1979 Luis would have been famous now.

What transpired on that fatal night, was that they had all gone off to a nightclub (on a school night), on the way back there was a real bad intersection in La Rochelle and another car had collided into the side of them, pushing them into a lamp post. There were 5 of them in the car but only Jo-anne and Luis were killed. I could only believe that they must have been to good for this earth and that is why God fetched them.

Their funerals were the biggest event in the South that year, Luis funeral was in the morning at the Catholic Church in Hilbrow, there must have been over 300 people there. Jo-annes funeral was more low key in the afternoon at a funeral chapel, but they were both buried at West Park Cemetery.

High School ...

I'd say I had a pretty happy childhood, being the youngest of 3 girls and having parents that were fairly elderly, I somehow got away with Murder, this is possibly because my two older sisters gave my parents such a hard time, that my antics were angelic in comparisson.

My eldest sister was always in trouble for something or another, my middle sister who was partially deaf had the worst mood swings in the world and her and my eldest sister were always fighting and trying to kill one another, so I was just left to my own accord.

My eldest sister moved out of the house when she was 18/19 years old, so it was only myself and my middle sister left - we also never really got along and I would spend majority of my afternoons at friends houses. This also p*ssed my sister off as to pass any exams she had to really study hard, whereas I would pick up a book, read through it and know that I would scrape through. She had to repeat 2 years and we ended up being in the same standard when I started High School, so you can imagine the competition. (On her part)

If I spent the afternoon learning I could manage a "C" and if I really studied hard would get an "A" or "B". Never wanted to be an A student anyway, and my social life was much more important to me than sudying.

(Remind me to delete all of this before Emily starts learning to read)!!!

Charlene and I became friends in Standard 3, she lived down the road from me like most of my friends. My house would have been the first house on the way home for everyone, so a lot of my friends came home to my place (so I could drop off my school bag and get changed) and then I would end up at there house for the afternoon, always making sure to get home before 5o'clock as my mother got home from work at 5 and if we weren't home there would be hell to pay.

My Fathers stories...

From what I can remember there were those days when we were young, we would sit at my fathers feet and quiz him about his life.

Daddy where were you born? - "Sydney, in Australia before the war"

Do you have any brothers or sisters? - 1 brother called Peter, 2 sisters, Irene and Elizabeth and they all live in Australia.

Can you speak Afrikaans? - "No"

Can you help me with my maths? "No I only passed Std. 3"

Where are your mom and dad? "they both passed away"

Then he would tell us the stories about how they never went to school, but took lessons by radio because they lived in the Outback of Australia.

Sundays and St. Stephens Presbyterian church

Sunday School

Sunday was a family day, us kids were shipped off to Sunday School every Sunday mornig, which gave my mom & dad an hours break from us. My father would always drop us off and fetch us.

I was christened in September 1964 at the "St. Stephens, Presbyterian Church, Japie street, Rosettenville", this would have been one of the rare occasions that both my mother and my father would have attended a church service. I was put onto the Cradle Role and became a member of "St. Stephens".

My mother often attended the evening sevices later on, but from the age of 3 years old I started at the Sunday school, my eledest sister would have been 9 and was always made to look after me, so I would be dropped off at the class at 10:00 am on a sunday morning and then picked up at 11:00.

I have very fond memories of Sunday school, but then also very disturbing memories - I was alway told that God was looking down on me, watching me ... which frightened the bejayses (good Irish word) out of me. It's hard going through life trying not to do anything wrong, just in case God was watching and he would either tell your parents, teachers or worse strike you dead with a bolt of lightening. No wonder I am like I am today ...

One of my fondest memories of the Cradle section of the sunday school was learning about Moses in the bull rushes and we made little baskets out of play dough, and baby Moses was a jelly baby - well baby Moses never ever even made it home, he got eaten !!!

The wonderful thing about Sundays was that we would always get home from Sunday School to a Sunday Roast, we always had chicken and another roast meat because my father refused to eat chicken, lots of vegatables and cauliflower with cheese sauce, and of course of Sundays there would always be pudding.

Then after lunch, we would wash the dishes, clean up the kitchen and have the famous Sunday afernoon sleep (SMK). My father in winter (if the sun was shining) would take the paper, get into his car, roll the car half way down the drive-way into the sun and inevitably go to sleep. If it was really cold he would move his chair infront of the fire place and go to sleep, normally with his pipe dangling out of his mouth.

In summer he would just go out to the veranda and fall asleep ... he was always sleeping, but then at his age he needed it especially having a hectic job and 3 young girls to bring up.

The 60's and 70's

From what I rember we grew up in a middle class family, lived in a middle class area and went to Goverment schools in the South of Johannesburg.

Father Kemp was not often around as he was out working on construction sights, so would either leave very early in the morning and get home just in time for supper (before we went to bed).

On week-ends my mom would always take us to the matinee at the Bioscope or "bug house" as my father would refer to it as. And thinking back now it really was a "bug house", do you even remember that you could smoke in the movie houses in those days, there was an ashtray behind each chair.

So Saturday morning was spent grocery shopping and then Saturday afternoon at the bug house. Most times my father would also work on a Saturday and if he wasn't working he would be out doing other things, banking - oh yes I remember going with my dad, on the last Saturday of each month into town to do his banking. We would get all dressed up to go into town, then he would take us for breakfast as a little coffee shop in Loveday street, round the corner from the Barclays Bank in Commissioner street where he had his account.

I remember those Saturday so clearly as we were never ever taken out to eat, and this was the one and only time we ever went into a restaurant. I would normally have a cup of weak coffee and anchovy toast, this was my big treat. On my birthday I remember my dad letting me have bacon and a fried egg.

SCHOOL

Primary school wasn't so bad although I always hated school, I started grade 1 at the tender age of 5 and a half at the school down the road called "The Hill Extension Primary School", when having to fill in forms about our parents, my mothers date of birth was December 1924 and my fathers was always written down as the 6th of September, 1914. In those days the 6th of September was a public holiday as it was Settlers day - The day Jan Van Riebeck arrived at the cape. (My South African history leaves a lot to be desired).

So according to the 1914 birthdate my father would have been 49/50 when I was born and not the under stated 48 although not too far off the mark.

Who is my Father? Who am I?

This is a question my sisters and I have probably been asking especially in the last 20 years.

My Father 

According to my birth certificate my father is : Harold James Kemp
According to my birth certificate he was born in : Sydney, Australia
According to my birth certificate he was 48 years of age when I was born.

This all becomes very interesting, however before I delve into who he was, let me tell you a bit about "our family".

ME

I was born in Durban, Kwazulu Natal in 1964, I had 2 sisters, one 6 years older than me the other 22 months. My parents had moved down to Durban from Johannesburg in 1963 after my father who had a construction company, had been offered some kind of deal down in Durban, after selling up his company and moving down to Durban, the deal never worked out and he lost all his money.

After I was born, they moved back to Johannesburg in the September, all I know was it snowed as my father had 8mm movies that he would film and we watched these in later year. I have no idea where they are now.