Johannesburg in the 1940's and 1950's.
LIFE IN JOEYS SIXTY YEARS AGO
Houses with corrugated iron roofs,
Which increased the winter cold and summer heat.
Coal stoves and donkey boilers
Icy winters in front of tiny fires.
Wooden kitchen dressers with cup hooks,
Porcelain washbowls in terrazzo sinks
Linoleum floor coverings; dusty carpet runners.
Coal sacks in grimy backyard sheds
Stables; there were few cars
Fresh eggs from your own hens
Delicious fruit from trees in your garden,
And veggies fresh from the backyard.
The butcher and the grocer calling for orders;
NelsRust Dairies and the daily deliveries.
Rinsing off the cardboard milk caps
Listen, there’s the tinkle of the ice-cream guy with his bike.
[How the kids loved those tuppeny lollies!]
Newtown Market’s vegetables, chickens, flowers and eggs.
The auctioneer’s rapid-fire sales and horse-drawn carts waiting for loads.
Sandown’s gentle country life with its stables and horses;
It was the original ‘mink and manure’ suburb.
Quiet walks in Illovo along sandy tree-lined roads,
‘George’s’ riding stables where
International hotels and huge offices stand today.
The Reef towns were so far away; no motorways then,
The silence and emptiness of the countryside; and
Miles of golden grasslands between Jo’burg and Pretoria.
Incredible, roaring hailstorms; stately cumulus galleons
Drifting towards the Lowveld
A freezing winter’s night and the lonely whistle of a distant train
And a migrant worker playing a homesick tune on a m’birya – [Jew’s harp]
Radiograms and wind-up gramophones; crystal sets with earphones.
Terrible reception, especially during a Highveld thunderstorm.
Eric Egan and early morning ‘physical jerks’,
Wonderful ‘English’ radio serials. Remember the “Man in Black?”
Esme Euvrardt, Springbok and Lourenço Marques radios;
‘Vasbyt’ to the the boys on the Border
The ‘Three Wise Men,’ and Sunday afternoon radio plays.
The charm of Paddy O’Byrne; but this was some time later.
‘Judge’-brand saucepans and enamel coffee pots.
Coir and feather mattresses,
Iron bedsprings sagging in the middle.
Wardrobes with long panel mirrors
Bentwood chairs; fly-screens on windows.
Washstands with porcelain bowls and jugs, and
The ‘Gazunder.’
Long-drop toilets, scraps of newspaper on a nail on the wall
Mule-drawn carts and silent figures removing the buckets.
‘PUTCO’ buses and black cyclists riding to work each day.
Chanting gangs of labourers digging trenches
And the huge wooden cores after the cables were laid
Hand-cranked phones and a ‘party-line’
The three-hour wait for a trunk-call
Plug-in switchboards. Then the operator’s irritated
“Nommer asseblief,”
Stinkwood and Imbuia ‘ball-and-claw’ furniture
Shepherd & Barker, who only sold the best reproductions
Thelma Brodé, who photographed everyone.
Magical Japanese origami which opened under water,
A whiff of incense and the gleam of beautiful fabric
An Indian bridal shop.
Fine suits hand-tailored by skilled Europeans,
Made refugee by Hitler’s persecution.
Cosmopolitan Hillbrow, cosy Café Kranzler and Viennese coffee.
Newspapers on sticks and languages from all over Europe.
The daily crush of hatted and gloved workers
Hurrying down Twist Street when the trams were full
The designs and colours of Basuto blankets
Worn by homebound miners walking to Park Station.
Led by an Induna. Heads high, they marched to a song of home.
Sewing machines, paraffin lamps and Prymus stoves
All found their way to the rural kraals
Together with other, more secret, gifts.
The Italianate beauty of the central court
At Park Station and the ‘Blue Room’ restaurant.
All the excitement of long steam train journeys to the coast.
The appeal for aluminium saucepans ‘for the War Effort’
Digging “Anderson Shelters” in the back garden
Knitting socks, balaclavas and scarves for the troops,
General and Isie Smuts and the “Little Man” lapel pin
The redbrick Victorian buildings of the old
Johannesburg hospital and the frightening arrival of polio,
Children in ‘iron-lungs,’ feebly battling to stay alive.
The majestic white ‘Institute’ on Hospital Hill where they
Researched the viruses, and made serum for snakebite.
It was used all over Africa.
The original Wanderers near Park Station,
And the exclusive Rand Club; site of many a mining coup.
An American petrol pump, hand-cranked,
Two vertical glass one-gallon tanks in the metal casing
Filling and emptying alternately as the petrol siphons off.
War shortages, and cars converted to run on paraffin.
No white flour, and making butter from ‘top-o-the-milk,’
Trams and double-decker buses with overhead
Electric connections; cream and red were the city’s colours.
Agile conductor in navy uniform and cap,
With his silver coin holder, bundle of tickets and hand-punch.
Pull the cord once to stop. “Ting, ting” and we’re off again!
Delays while he hooked the electric unit back on the lines
With a long bamboo pole hidden underneath the bus.
The noise of reversing seats as he slapped them into position
When the end of the line was reached.
Springbok-head logo on SAR train windows;
Shiny green bolsters bumping varnished mahogany woodwork,
Smeared black and white photos of Cape-Dutch manor houses
“Alle kaartjies, asseblief,” as we click-clack over the points.
Music of the gong signalling lunch and dinner.
Dreary mine towns, coal dust and smuts in your eye.
Lisle stockings, crepe de chine; the first nylons
Pancake make-up and Tangee lipstick
The scent of “Evening in Paris” at your first dance.
C-to-C [Cape-to-Cairo] cigarettes at 1/1d for 30
A penny, a tickey, a shilling, a half-crown, a florin and a guinea
Parity between Sterling and the South African pound.
The “Rand Daily Mail” and ‘Angela Day’
Pink penny stamps with a picture of Brittania;
Ha-penny if the envelope was open; telegrams at a penny a word!
Tea-room “bio’s” with their continuous performances
American Milk Bars, all chromium and fizz;
The Dolls House at midnight, and double-thick chocolate malteds.
Banana-splits, Coke-specials and hotdogs with yellow mustard
The ‘Stars of the Silver Screen’ every week at suburban cinemas
Wednesday and Saturday matinees, 6d for kids, adults 1/1d
The Lone Ranger, his trusty horse Tonto and exotic Zorro,
That was when cinema was new – a real dream factory.
Deanna Durban, Judy Garland, Nelson Eddy, Jeannette Macdonald
Vivienne Leigh and Clark Gable in “Gone with the Wind,”
The “Wizard of Oz,” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”
Swashbuckling Erroll Flynn, darkly handsome Tyrone Power,
The delicate blond beauty of Leslie Howard;
Mario Lanza’s fine tenor voice, and
The legendary Marlene Dietrich.
Eloff Street trams; elegant shops full
Of imported clothes, handbags and shoes.
Saturday shopping and white-gloved lift-girls: “Going Up!”
Wonderful hats: then morning and afternoon
Tea at the restaurant on the sixth floor
OK Bazaars’ Christmas windows, and “Switching on the lights”
Important enough to be announced in the newspaper.
The yellow haze of mine dust which hung over everything
And winter evening’s coal smoke turning the sunsets purple.
The old Olympia Ice-rink and nextdoor greyhound track.
The Drive-In cinema on top of a minedump,
MacPhails filthy coal yard, where carts pulled by
Emaciated horses waited for their loads.
Ansteys Art-Deco building, Markhams corner with the clock,
Escom House on Marshall and New Street,
Once the tallest building in the southern hemisphere.
It’s Gandhi Square today.
Vibrant theatre and musical productions:
‘Annie Get Your Gun’; ‘Oklahoma!’ and the highkicking ‘Tiller Girls,’
Charles Manning and his sweep of white hair
“Ag, Pleeze Deddy,” and Jeremy Taylor’s “Wait a Minim”
Leon Gluckman’s “King Kong” and “Ipi Tombi” by Bertha Egnos
“Back o’ the Moon, Boys,” and “Mama Temba’s Wedding” … do you remember?
‘Second-show’ at the Metro; shown to your seat by
A uniformed usherette with a torch.
While John Massey played the cinema organ and
We sang to the ‘bouncing-ball.’
Rustling chocolate papers, lacquered hair, tight shoes,
Corsets and fur coats in the Grand Circle.
A thick haze of cigarette smoke by interval
Where’s the usherette with her tray of ice-creams and lollies?
The East African Pavilion and their fabulous curries.
Nght-watchmen huddled over a brazier.
Sounds of a “Penny-Whistle Boogie” on a frosty night.
Remember how the city was always ‘under construction’?
Bothner’s and Gallo’s music shops,
The grand pianos and brass instruments.
And a sky of twinkling stars and Moorish castles at the Coliseum.
‘His Majesty’s Cellars’ and their Crayfish Newburg
The Phoenix Beer-hall, a stein of draft,
Free bread, ‘thumb soup’ and schnitzel.
The ‘old’ Carlton Hotel, focus of every big occasion;
The “Spring Ball” where elegantly white-gowned
Young ladies and their escorts were
Presented to the Governor-General at the ‘Ball of the Season.’
Elegance and luxury at the Langham Hotel,
The Criterion, for years the hangout of
Newshounds, and the midday crush for drinks;
Flower sellers near the City Hall;
Saturday mornings in the Johannesburg Central Library where
Books in red calf-leather bindings stood in ranks on the shelves.
The original Thrupps in Eloff Street, and their
Huge range of imported food.
Half-day closing on Wednesdays and three o’clock on Saturdays.
The Lutyens-designed Joubert Park Art Gallery with
Its fine collection of paintings and sculpture;
The Edwardian fountain and orchids in the hothouse,
The spring flower beds.
Picnics at the Zoo; excited children crowding the mounting blocks
For rides on elephants and camels.
Charity fairs at Zoo Lake ‘for the War Effort’
Soggots Corner, Publix and Stuttafords in Rosebank.
Gallagher’s in Orange Grove full of wholesome baked goods.
Narrow roads choked with peak hour traffic
As the city emptied when the shops and offices closed
Louis Botha, the only road connecting Pretoria and Joeys
Before the construction of Ben Schoeman.
The eleven-hour drive to Durban before the motorway was built.
Do you remember those far-off days …?
Well, if you do; you’re as nearly as old as I am!
With thanks to Olive Jew and Mike Edwards whose evocative phrase “thumb soup”
immediately recalled the tastes and sounds of the old Phoenix Beerhall. Thanks also to all the
wonderful citizens of ‘Joeys’ who have made this great city what it is.