Communes in Jo'burg - Revisited

 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. 

Firstly this is the Post from 2017 - Commune parties in Jo'burgs Northern Suburbs 

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 ) 

Commune parties in Jo'burgs Northern Suburbs

I think it must have been around 1987 or so, I was living in Randburg in a cottage and there were lots of young 20 somethings in the area sharing houses or as we called them "communes".  

A lot of the guys who rented these houses would have commune parties to help pay the rent, a commune party was an open house party, some charged entrance fee and sold booze, where as others had free entry and sold booze.   The booze was cheap, the music was loud and there was loads of fun. 

I do however rememer one night I think it was a party on Republic road or somewhere around there, the neighbors got really upset and you can't blame them.   The police would be called, they would come and tell them to turn the music down, but as soon as they were gone, the music would go up again!  This particular night the neighbor took matters into his own hands and threw a canister of tear gas over the wall.

It was the first time I had experienced tear gas, and I remember running with my friends to the garage over the road and splashing water on our faces, only for someone to tell as after that, that is the worst thing you can do.   I don't remember what happened after but it is possible we went to Bimbo's for a schwarma, we often did that after leaving Smugglers on a Friday night on our way home, more often than not still with a glass of wine or a beer taken from the pub.

There were so many communes in those days, a lot of times run by varsity students and needing to make some money for the electricity or some other utility.  I do remember going to these commune parties in Illovo, Parktown, Sandton, Rosebank and more often than not these were beautiful old houses, that by the time the students left were asolutely wrecked.

I'd love to hear your memories on commune parties round the late 80's early 90's.

David's Blog about the Communal House Scene in Johannesburg during the 1970's....

So I received a comment by email from my "Other" blog, David who lives in Oz now and previously live in South Africa during the 70's.  Here is the comment:

Do you want to link to my Blog about the communal house scene in Johannesburg between 1975 and 1978?
It would be nice to do so from your Blog "It's My Life" since I read a very interesting article about people's memories about growing up there in the 1970's.
Here is the link:
http://thetyroneyearsjohannesburg1975to1978.blogspot.com.au/

So David I have linked it under "Blogs I follow" let me know if there is somewhere else you would like me to put it. 

It's quite interesting reading an expat's perspective on life in "Apartheid" South Africa, it's a fresh view on how things actually were.   Having been born in South Africa and growing up, you just never questioned anything that was going on, and of course there was a ban on broadcasting or writing anything that was happening in the country, so most of the time only the people overseas knew what was happening and not us.

My Kiwi Director, tells me how they learnt about South African history in New Zealand, which seemed a bit odd, and of course they would learn it in a totally different view to how we would have learned it. 

I was brought up by English speaking parents and of course my father was born in "Australia", so even though we had a maid living in the back room, she was treated with respect and dignity and especially as our parents would have been around from before "Apartheid" was introduced into South Africa.  In fact my "other mum" as I call her, is the first person on my list to visit whenever I return to South Africa.

I started off wanting to post about Communes, but it turned into more of a racial post, so I will have to create another post about communes.