AI gave me a great overview on Google:
Photographs of Johannesburg courtesy of www.joburg.org.za - This Blog is dedictated to Emily, in the Bon Jovi "have a nice day" tour programme, there is a note at the end that says "This is the story of my life and I write it every day, and I hope you're by my side when I'm writing the last page"
When I was home a few weeks ago, I met up with a few friends from the South of Jo'burg, who went to the same Primary school as I did: - "Highveld Primary".
One of my friends who became a teacher and eventually was appointed principal of a private school in Linmeyer, but has now retired was telling me how she spends her days. She told me she volunteers at St. Mary's home. We always referred to it as an orphanage, but it wasn't really a place for orphans but for kids who's parents either could not afford to keep them or neglected them.
On our way to meet up with the friends at "Gino's in Robertsham", there were a few kids begging at the traffic lights, my friend said that often these kids would land up at the home as well. This made me happy to know that they had somewhere they could go to have a meal and a warm bed.
I vowed that when I got back I would give back to the community where I grew up in and will start with "St. Marys", I have often helped other people who have organized events in the South, however this one is close to my heart and wanted to share it with all of you. If you perhaps feel the same then please see if there is something you can do to help them as well.
https://stmaryschildrenshome.org.za/news
Interesting facts about St. Mary's - In one of my posts I spoke about the Anglo Boer War and how the Johannesburg Concentration Camp was at the Turffontein Racecourse. My friend said that after the end of the ABW they opened St. Mary's which is not far from the Turffontein Racecourse.
"St Mary’s Children’s Home has been operating since 1902. Their services include residential care to 54 children designated to them through the Children’s Court on account of the Child Care Act, for reasons which include abuse (mental, physical, emotional and sexual abuse) and / or neglect, being orphaned or some have been affected by HIV/ AIDS virus. They come to them from surrounding informal settlements and many can be seen as the poorest of the poor."
We just returned from a couple of weeks in South Africa, far
too short a time!
It was a family wedding in the Midlands just near Nottingham
Road, I had not been to that area since I was engaged to a guy I met down in
Newcastle. His family on a farm on Botha's Pass just outside of
Memel on the way to Newcastle.
I was down on business and met him in the lounge at the Holiday Inn and we
exchanged numbers, can you believe it, this was back at the beginning of 1991
and yet to call the farm, you still had to go through the exchange ... remember
"Nommer asseblief" well that is exactly what it was.
They owned a farm which was 4000 ha of land, and they farmed
mainly sheep. When I look back now, I can see I fell in love with
the farm and not with the guy. It was an escape from the rat race,
as I would often go down on the weekend and spend my weekends there.
Then at one stage I had to go down on business and took my annual leave and spent 5 weeks down there. I think after that I realized that I was a "city" girl by heart. But the trip down to Nottingham Road, brought me back to a simple life. The farm was called "Donkerhoek" and was approximately 25km's from Newcastle. I remember that from turning into the gate of the farm it was a 5km drive to the main house, and the road wasn't the best.
The Farm was very colonial - the mother Eileen Mollie Steel (nee Davis) born 9th January 1923, and who obviously came from Money married Raymond Graham Steel. They had 3 Sons, Michael, Ian & Peter Graham Steel. They were all given the middle name Graham.
Eileen's father "John Richard Davis" came from Liverpool and was a sea Merchant, he must have had a lot of money as he acquired a piece of land in Witkoppen, Johannesburg called "Craigieburn" - I know his mom still had this land when Peter and I were dating. When John died in 1948 he left this piece of land to her, she was an only child. Eileen was baptised in Parktown, Johannesburg.Looking at Google maps this is all that is left and one webpage says: "A section of this once large castle now stands on its windswept promontory isolated from the mainland by years of erosion."
I think I went down a Rabbit whole with this post, my whole intention was to talk about how beautiful the Midlands are and the area. Where this probably came from was that after I was rescued from the Oceanos, I did not see Peter again, I broke up with him. However I did bump inot him and his mother at Sandton Clinic one day, I had gone to see the specialist about having my tonsils removed. And he had brought his mom up to see someone as she needed to get her 2nd hip replaced. I was around for the first one! She was a lovely lady and who knows where life would have taken me if I had ended up marrying Peter and inheriting a vast amount of money. But we will never know.
I don't even think I have a photo of the farm or the family, I will need to have a look.
A few Months ago, I was approached by a Canadian company who do podcasts called "Tell Me What Happened" - Here is the Podcast if you have aobut 35 minutes to spare.
I have started following them on Spotify as there are a lot of other interesting stories as well.
Back in 2017 I did a post from an email I received from David who was reading my blog, then in January 2025 Richard commented on my blog post, and today sent this photo to see if anyone remembers.
And here is Richards Comment:
Amazing to stumble on this blog. I was around a bit earlier than most of the history here - my time was 1971 to 1974 . I started Gasworks in '71and left in '74 after marrying one of other "inmates" - Gill, and still married - just made 50 years. Now living in Tasmania - 2 children (ha!) and 5 grandkids spread around the world. Great memories of Gasworks - largely in an alcoholic haze. I started the house olympics and actually have a picture of our team. (sorry John Cornell - he can claim fame to the "League of Gentlemen" darts league but not the olympics - sadly John died quite a while back). The Summer of '72 was an epic party - we even had Glenda Kemp who was a famous stripper. My wife had the task of looking after her snakes between acts. Then there was the gambling nights with full size roulette tables and blackjack. Not to mention movie nights with "under the counter movies" . I hope there's a statute of limitations because the number of rules we broke was huge. We built a great bar - there was always competion between houses for the best.
I can't see how to publish pictures on this blog but to name the Gasworks Olympics team - and where they are now: Bob and Jim - sorry can't recall surnames. Pam Martinez and John Cornell (John later married Marilyn) . Steve and Carolyn Kirk - now divorced living in Ireland. Jilly Warren, my GF at the time - married and living in Wales. Mike and Ardyne O Sullivan - now divorced DK. Stella Still - married and living in Jersey - still in touch.
Like so many ex-pats we decided life was getting too unpleasant ( bombs at the school , bricks through windscreens) and in 1987 we moved to Tassie - started up the same electronics business I had in Jo'burg which I eventually sold , retired, now into local politics for entertainment. Getting old gracefully.
Love to hear from anyone who can fill in the blanks.
And here is the email I received today along with the photo:
Hi Rozi
Here is the picture I refer to in post. Coincidentally, Stella Challinor now Still is visiting us in Tassie from another island - Jersey.
Happy to share my email if it can raise any old contacts.
Cheers
Richard (richardireland @ bigpond . com )
I was looking at the Stat's on my Blog, to see which posts have attracted the most attention, and it seems it is all the one's in which I reminisce about the old days.
I think a lot of us look over those days with fond memories, and by reading about someone else's memories, they think of their own and where they were and what they were doing at the time.
This reminds me of a post in a blog SA IN THE OLD DAYS from 2011, which triggered so many memories for me. So, I thought I would write something similar about my own memories.
1976 - TV was introduced to South Africa with the first Broadcast on the 5th of January 1976, we did not get our TV set until much later that year or the following year.
However, to start the programs were short, I think they only broadcast for a few hours every evening.
There was only 1 Channel to start and if I remember correctly each alternate day it would start with a different language, so for instance on a Monday you would have English from 6 - 8 and the news in Afrikaans, and then Afrikaans for the rest of the broadcast.
On Tues you would start with Afrikaans and go onto English with the news in English.
I destinctly remember Tuesday, as my mother would make us watch the programme "The World at War" which started at about 9 PM and had some horrific scenes of Hitler and how he killed the Jews. They even showed someone being shot in the head and the brains splattering on Hitler's shoes.
The sad thing about getting TV was that we no longer listened to our favourite stories on Springbok Radio. This was the start of the end of Springbok Radio and the many shows we would listen to in the evening, like "Squad Cars" & "The men from the Ministry", so many different ones. Wikipedia has a list of all the different shows here. But I think Springbok Radio probably deserves a post of its own, so watch this space. Oh, actually I did one previously ... Springbok Radio.
Mostly we listened to the Springbok top 20 which was late on a Friday night with David Gresham and then repeated on a Saturday. They eventually made Pop Shop which was shown on TV on a Friday evening with the latest top hits and music videos.
My best friend's brother "Alex Jay" (name dropping) eventually took over Pop Shop and hosted it for many years. Although now that I googled it, I think Alex's show was called "Fast Forward" and not Pop Shop. Check it out ...
Happy New Year to you all!
It feels like another lifetime ago, but I vividly recall my high school years when mandatory military enlistment loomed large for all boys...