Life on the Upper Deck: Memories of Growing Up and Working in Jozi

 

How many of you can say you lived and worked in the heart of Johannesburg during its golden era?

Growing up just 8 kilometers south of the city center—with the iconic Carlton Centre anchoring the skyline—Johannesburg was the backdrop of my youth. From a very young age, taking the bus into the city was an event, though back then, it was a special treat rather than a daily routine.

My early memories involve catching the Route 46 trolleybus from The Hill, near South Rand Road and Verona Street. Route 46 was a vibrant, bustling lifeline connecting Rosettenville to the city center via Von Wielligh and Jeppe Streets. The bus always terminated at the energetic Van der Bijl Square bus station, where we would disembark and explore the city on foot.

As the years passed, my route shifted to the Route 45, which stopped just a block from our home in Linmeyer. By 1981, when I started college, this route ran from the Linmeyer Post Office all the way to Braamfontein to service students heading to Wits University. Since my college was located on Eloff Street, I usually got off near the bustling OK Bazaars.

Taking the bus into the city every day created memories I still cherish. The atmosphere was always lively—filled with what we in Ireland call great craic and banter. We were noisy kids, always heading straight for the back of the top deck. In those days, smoking was still permitted on the upper deck, while non-smokers preferred the lower level.

During the apartheid era, municipal public transit operated under strict racial segregation laws. City buses were color-coded and assigned to separate routes: non-white commuters were served by single-decker green buses, while white commuters traveled on the distinctive double-decker red buses.

Weekends brought a different kind of excitement. Saturdays were spent meeting friends in the city to catch movies, ice-skate at the Carlton Sky-Rink, dance at the afternoon discos at Plum Crazy or Club Chicago, or meet up for blind dates. Occasionally, we took the bus into town for evening events, but we always had to keep one eye on the clock—the last bus back to the suburbs left at midnight sharp, and missing it was simply not an option.

Working in the city during that era was an incredible experience. I loved walking among the beautiful classical and Georgian-style architecture, stopping by local pubs, shopping, and soaking in the vibrant energy of the streetscapes.

My daily bus journeys into town came to an end in the late 1980s. By then, I had moved to Randburg and commuted into the city via the Ferndale route. After leaving my position at Barclays / FNB at the end of 1987, I transitioned to jobs located in the suburbs, swapping the bus ride for a daily drive.

Johannesburg has a rich history, evolving rapidly from its origins in 1886 as a tented gold-mining camp into a dynamic metropolis. While I’ve shared my own memories and photos of those double-decker bus rides and city center days, I’d love to hear yours.

Did you live or work in Johannesburg during this era? What are your favorite memories of the city center? Share your stories in the comments below!

Forgive my AI piture I will eventually get it right ... Elizabeth street, really??

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!

Friday Night Disco at St. Mary's Home Rosettenville

Almost 40 years since I attending the Disco at St. Mary's Home in Rosettenville, but this morning I was listening to a song by the Bee Gee's and it was the first thing that came to mind.   Did any of you attend those disco's?  Would love to hear your memories?

"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!

Disco ... Disco Duck ... the under 18's

The other day they were discussing nightclubs on the radio here in Dublin, and because I have only been living here for 10 years, some of them are still around however most of them would be gone, and it got me thinking about nightclubs I used to go to when I was growing up.

I probably first started going to nightclubs at a very young age, some of them were Kiddies Disco's which were on a Saturday afternoon and sold no alcohol and were for kids under 18, two of these were "Plumb Crazy" and "Club Chicago" both in the center of Johannesburg.   They would start at around 1 in the afternoon and finish at 5 or 6, so that they could clean up for the over 18's to come through the doors at 7 the same night.  But it was 1977 and John Travolta was ruling the dance floor in Saturday night fever, then came Grease in 1978 and the whole 50's era was reborn with stove pipe jeans, greased back hair and wild teenagers.

We also used to go to "Tramps" at the Diplomat hotel, only during the week though because they would have free entry coupons in the Tonight section of The Star.

A lot of fights would break out at the Disco mainly because of the Gangs from the South and most of the time it was always over a girl.

However, most of the disco's we went to growing up were either at School, The Tennis club, the cricket club or various places where there was adult supervision.   Once I left school, there was a huge big City out there to explore and Johannesburg, Hilbrow, Braamfontein, Hyde Park and Randburg had an abundance of night clubs just waiting to be discovered.