The Outside Children

Five South African families rent rooms in the house at 46, 8^th Avenue, Bez Valley. I spoke to Richard Yende from Ermelo who lives in one room with his wife, Goodness, and their child, Princess, and Raymond Majola from KZN who also rents a room and stays there with his girlfriend, Valencia, and their three-year old daughter, Shenhlanhla. Both men work in the city and are saving up to buy their own homes in the area.

Almost 60 years ago, the house was owned by Heidi Herb’s family. “The house has changed altogether,” says Heidi, who remembers “a swing in the garden and a plum and a fig tree from which wonderful jam was made”.

 

Heidi’s father immigrated from Bavaria in 1923. The oldest of 11 children, he was 23 and had 10 shillings to his name when he first arrived in South Africa. Initially he rented a room in a boarding house on the Berea side of Rocky Street and worked for the New York Steam Laundry. Later he opened his own textile business at the bottom of 1^st Street in Bez Valley.

Heidi remembers that “…there was also a Chinese shop between 1^st Street and 2^nd Street. As you went down 1^st Street it was on the left hand side. It actually bordered onto the sluit. That is where my dad had his business. There were Chinese people there who had a veggie place. They would get things from the market but they also planted their own vegetables at the back. You could get fresh cabbage, carrots, and beetroot. They had a little stable and a horse. They were lovely people.”

Heidi’s brother and sisters were born in the Bez Valley house. Her parents lived in the house from 1928 to 1944, when her father built a house in Observatory Extension, where Heidi was born in 1947. Childhood memories include playing on the Golf Course or in the large garden of the Observatory House. “We weren’t showered with a lot of presents as children. I had a dolly and a teddy and a pram and that was it. But we played outside. We were outside children”.

The Bez Valley house remained in the family. “My grandmother and her sister, my great aunt, lived there until my grandmother died in 1954. I spent a lot of my youth in that house. I would walk from Observatory Extension down to Bez Valley or my parents would take me there by car, and I would spend the weekend with my grandmother...

The house was very pretty and homely and it was beautifully kept. It was full of lovely old furniture. There was a pantry, which was my ‘shop’. I was the laat lammetjie and I used to talk to myself. I used to play that I was a shopkeeper, and I used to buy and sell things...

At a shop on the corner of 8^th Avenue and 2^nd Street they used to sell big balls of green and pink ice cream. I would be given a penny, or whatever it was at the time, to go and buy this divine ice cream...

 
On the corner of Kitchener Avenue and 2^nd Street there was a general dealer owned by an elderly Chinese gentleman with a very long plait right down to his waist. I was always absolutely fascinated by his plait.”

 

Heidi remembers paraffin being sold from 30 gallon paraffin drums, and huge bags of chicken feed in the shop, and she has vivid memories of going to other local shops with her grandmother. “We would go down to Hacks butchery. It was down 8^th Avenue, then you would turn right into 2^nd Street. On the next corner to the left, there was Brenner’s garage. Mr. Brenner was an old German Jew and a very good mechanic...

 
There was also a haberdashery in the same street. It was in the middle of the block, with houses all around it. I have such beautiful memories of that shop. It had steps going up and it had a wooden floor and bay windows. It was full of materials and cottons. It was wonderful, wonderful. My gran and my aunt used to go there. They used to knit socks for me and they would buy the wool and the needles there. We would go shopping at the haberdashery and then we would go to the Chinese vegetable garden...

I still remember the trams. Once a month my gran and I would catch the tram. The tram stop was opposite the general dealer, just next to the Anglican Church. We would take the tram all the way to Henwoods in Loveday Street and from there we would catch the bus to Westpark cemetery. My grandfather and my uncle were buried there. My grandmother would buy flowers from vendors outside in the street and we would visit the graves, which were not very far in from the gate. This was always a wonderful outing for me. Afterward we took the bus to town and from there caught the tram back to Bez Valley...

My great aunt had the most beautiful antique iron bed and a throw-over that must have come from Austria or Germany, and a gramophone with a horn, you know, like ‘His Master’s Voice’. She used to play ‘Der Fledermaus’ by Johann Strauss and I used to dance around the table. I was entertainment for them.”

 

"They had gas, electricity, and a coal stove in the house. I remember linen being ironed with heavy irons heated on the coal stove. My gran and my great aunt were great bakers. At Christmas time, the old kitchen table was crammed with freshly baked German Christmas cookies.”