...that fell away...

Merle Schubotz (nee Haigh) was born in 1936. When she was four, her parents moved into the house at 109, 7^th Avenue, Bez Valley. “I was four years old when we moved to Bez Valley in 1940. Then my sister arrived five and a half years later. That was a great day. It was just me and my mom and dad before that….I remember rushing home from school to see my little sister, Jenny. I was so excited. My friend Lorraine Hess (now Lorraine Birch and still a close friend) couldn’t understand the urgency to see a baby. She had six siblings!”



Childhood memories are happy and full. “What I remember most are the carefree days of playing in the street with my friends, sometimes until 7 o’clock at night! We played ‘gemmertjie’ and hopscotch and rounders with tennis rackets, and hide and seek.”



Under the grapevine

All the family’s shopping was done locally. “On the corner of 4^th Street and 8^th Avenue there was a little Chinese shop where we bought some of our groceries and cigarettes for my dad. There was a general store, a butcher, a chemist and a café on Broadway. Round the corner from us in 6^th Avenue, there was a Chinese vegetable farm where vegetables were picked fresh as you bought them. A tickey of soup greens was so heavy I could hardly carry it and it made two big pots of soup. I used to walk there and buy the veggies for my mom and dad. It was directly behind our house.”

Merle went to Bez Valley Junior School in 7^th Avenue, which is Rand College today; then to Bez Valley Central, which is now Sir Edmund Hillary; and finally to Observatory Junior High, which is now Athlone Girls. She would walk up the 5^th Street hill to catch the bus in Observatory every morning, and walk down in the afternoon.

Koppie in the background

For several years, Merle was ill and unable to attend school. “…In spite of our healthy eating, I was very ill between the ages of seven and eight, going on to nine years of age. I had Rheumatic Fever, Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria and Yellow Jaundice as well as measles and mumps (that the other children had). My mom nursed me at home with a dear family doctor coming to see my twice a day…

I remember my dear friends coming to visit me after school, talking through the bedroom window! That was so special because I was in bed for months.

Some of those friends are still in touch. Maureen Knox (now Maureen van der Merwe) lived over the road with her five siblings. Now she lives in Pietersburg with her husband and family.  She is still a close friend.”

Extra-mural activities included drama lessons. “When I was 12 I used to go by tram on my own. I took drama lessons and elocution lessons. I used to go to Troye Street for lessons. It was quite a notorious street. All the prostitutes were there.  But my teacher, Kathleen Kelly, had a flat up there. I would get off the tram and walk right up to the top, near Bree Street. I did a bit of drama from the age of 11 until about 15 and then that fell away.”

During the War years, sugar, butter and tea were rationed. Merle remembers doing up parcels for her grandparents who lived in England. She was 12 when she first met them. “My grandmother used to scrape that paper of the butter until there wasn’t anything left. I still do that today…”

Next to the Mulberry tree

Merle’s father worked for the municipality near City Deep and her mother worked for OK Bazaars in town. Merle’s first job was with Prudential Insurance in town, just off Loveday Street.

Tea at the OK Bazaars or Stuttafords and the cinema were weekend treats. “We used to love going to the OK Bazaars in town for tea and cream cakes and to listen to the bands there. And we used go to Stuttafords in town. We used to go on the tram…We used to go to the cinema, to ‘The Gem’ in Troyeville and to ‘The Regent’ on Langerman Drive in Kensington. It eventually became ‘The Fairways’. They changed the name. And then it burnt down. We avoided ‘The Regal’ (near Eastgate) because it was rough. It cost a sixpence to go to the bioscope. I got a shilling and I could either get on the bus or walk and keep the other sixpence for an ice cream.”

“When I was much older my parents had a car. It was just before I got married when they got their first car. It was a little ‘Prefect’”.

“I lived in the house in Bez Valley for almost 16 years, until I got married. Then I went back there for two years after my divorce. I loved our old house. We had a grapevine that spread from the front gate to the front door, and there was a huge apricot tree and mulberry and pomegranate tree. The house is still there but it looks completely different. All the trees are gone and there is a garage where the grapevine was. The property looked huge when I was a child but now when I drive past it doesn’t look very big at all. The garden was in the front. We had no backyard. We had side lanes and we were right on the border of the next house at the back.”

“Once I went there and asked if I could have a look and they let me in. There used to be a huge lounge but they made a passage and another bedroom on the one side. My tiny bedroom had been made into a bathroom with steps going up. My mom’s bedroom became the lounge. We used to have our toilet on the back verandah; they changed that into a breakfast nook. And the old bathroom became a pantry.”