1977

 Today in Ireland, our favourite Radio station that started out as a Pirate Radio Station many years ago, and eventually go a licence to broadcast 13 years ago today!  

So that was back in 2010 and I must admit that every single one of our radios are on 100.3 or Nova.ie - during their broadcast this morning, the DJ was saying about them turning 13 and do you remember when you turned 13, so of course sitting in traffic, I went down the nostalgic route of thinking about when I turned 13.

It brought back many memories, the year was 1977 to be exact, and I had just started High School at the Hill High.   It was daunting, coming from Highveld Primary where we probably had about 120 kids in Standard 5 in 3 classes, to going into the Assembly Hall and there were hundreds and hundreds of kids going into Standard 6.  

The Classes started from A so 6A, 6B right down to 6K with approximately 40 kids in each class.  11 x 40 = 440 kids, 320 more than what we had in Std. 5 and of course the school was huge with still classes from 7 - 10 - if I remember correctly there were about 1100 + kids in the whole school. 

Our class was pretty evenly split with Boy / Girl ratio, and as you can imagine that age the hormones are running wild.  I was in 6G pretty much the worst behaved class in the whole school.  Our teach Ms. Harvey was pretty strict and very liberal, me coming from a very conservative background where we never spoke about sex at home, and my form teacher giving the girls a lesson on sex education on probably the first week of high school, and telling us all about contraception and the various types.

However, we figured the reason for this was there were a lot of kids from "Pram Valley / Stork City" that attended the school.  

In context Highveld was probably the best primary school in that part of the South of Johannesburg, most of the other primary schools work in more disadvantaged areas not all but some such as South Hills which was known as Stork City as the girls would fall pregnant in High School and end up having to leave. 

So that is the school bit done!

What else do I remember from 1977 

Elvis died and yes I cried ... I remember waking up and hearing the news on the radio before I went to school, it was still winter and dark and depressing and I was now even more depressed! 

This man was my hero, I was going to see him in Las Vegas when I finished school and could afford to go - I always wished he was my dad when I was that age!


The same teacher who taught us about Sex-ed arranged for us all to go to the movies after school one day to see "Close encounters of the third kind" it had just been released on circuit. 

We all took the bus into town and went to the Kine centre in downtown Johannesburg, across from the Carlton Center.  It was a great afternoon out and a great sci-fi movie for it's time!  

But I must say I loved musicals, and 1977 was the year that one of the greatest musicals came out - who could forget "Saturday Night Fever" and John Travolta, which guy did not want to be John Travolta and which girl did not drool over him!  Many a fantasy dream had John Travolta in, and of course this made the Bee Gees really famous especially with the young kids. 

The way he moved on that disco floor was by far the sexiest thing, we had every seen.  And then of course we had the teenage disco's at Club Chicago and Plumb Crazy, all of them playing "Night Fever" or some other song from the movie.  


We would also go to the Skyrink on a Saturday as they would have the disco on ice and they would play all the hits.

Other Movies we saw that year

"Star Wars" - The first one - even though it was called  Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

It was the first of the series of Star Wars films made by George Lucas, we saw it at a movie house in Claim street (I think), I just remember it was the first time we had been to a surround sound movie and it was SO loud.   

"Smokey and the Bandit" - Another "hot" actor Burt Reynolds

"The Deep" with Nick Nolte (hottie back then) 

Music:

Who can live without music, my radio was always on constantly and the Top 40 with David Gresham on Springbok Radio, was all we waited for every week. 

I just looked up and found the Top 40 for the year 1977 here is the list:  https://sacharts.wordpress.com/category/1977/ 

I must say a lot of the songs I can't really bear to hear on the Radio anymore!

The list from the 8th of April a week after my birthday was: 

Pos LW Weeks Song Artist

1 2 7 Don’t Leave Me This Way – Thelma Houston

2 1 5 Smile – Pussycat

3 4 5 Living Next Door to Alice – Smokie

4 3 6 Love Me – Yvonne Elliman

5 11 4 Rock ‘n Me – Steve Miller Band

6 5 10 Lost in France – Bonnie Tyler

7 6 12 If You Leave Me Now – Chicago

8 7 10 Livin’ Thing – Electric Light Orchestra

9 8 7 Just Another Poor Boy – Chris de Burgh

10 New 1 Don’t Cry for Me Argentina – Julie Covington

11 10 8 Keep on Smilin’ – John Paul Young

12 16 3 I Recall a Gypsy Woman – Don Williams

13 15 4 Couldn’t Get it Right – Climax Blues Band

14 9 8 Moody Blue – Elvis Presley

15 14 9 What Have I Done – Mike Eager

16 New 1 Hey Mister Dream Maker – Cliff Richard

17 12 5 When a Child is Born – Johnny Mathis

18 18 2 Who’s Gonna Tie My Shoes – Barbara Ray

19 19 2 Chanson D’Amour – Manhattan Transfer

20 13 14 Howzat – Sherbet

I am sure there is a lot more stored in the memory banks from 1977 but I think this post has been long enough and you are probably bored by now, so until next time enjoy the read!