Still friends...

LILLIAN
 

Lillian van der Merwe was born in 1944. Her family lived at 20, 10^th Avenue, Bez Valley and then moved to Cumberland Avenue when the family home was converted into playing fields for Kensington Laerskool and Sir Edmund Hillary. The house was a face brick house with a red corrugated iron roof.

 

Lillian went to Kensington Laerskool and then to Kensington Hoer, which is now an army base.





Outside school playing fields

 

She remembers Shamrock Dairies at the bottom of 10^th Avenue, next to the sluit, and the laundry a block away in 9^th Avenue. Every day the children used to fetch four pints of milk from the dairy in silver milk buckets. On an average day Lillian would play in the streets until 4 o’clock and then come home and wash her hands, before going to fetch the milk.

Other memories include going to the greengrocer to collect cabbage and other vegetable leaves to feed the family’s chickens that were kept in the backyard.

 

 

 

Shops Lillian remembers include Queen’s Chemist on Broadway and ST Stores on the corner of 8^th Street and Broadway. ST Stores was owned by a Greek café owner called Nick. He owned a café and a grocery shop connected to the café by an inter-leading door. The grocery shop closed at 1 o’clock on a Saturday and nothing would induce him to open it until Monday.

“Behind Kitchener Service Station, there was another café. On the other corner there was the garage owner, Shortie, who lived opposite in the flat. Then there was Mr. Green’s butchery and Settler’s Stores owned by old Abraham. All my dress materials and pajama material came from Abraham, because my mother used to sew. We used to take a walk down to Abraham and pick the material. It is one the few original shops that is still there but it is the son now, not the father. The old man is dead. “

RITA

Rita Pirie (nee Landman) and Lillian were childhood friends, and they are still friends. Rita lived at 226, 6^th Avenue with her two brothers and her parents. She was born in 1942 and started at Kensington Laerskool in 1949. Her high school was the Afrikaansehandelskool Parktown.

Rita lived in Bez Valley until she got married at the age of 22. The family went on living there for at least another five years.

Childhood memories include playing in the Chinese veggie gardens and pinching carrots at night, and riding the dairy horse in Bezuidenhout Park.

In the afternoons my brother used to go and fetch the dairy horse and we would take it to Bezuidenhout Park and ride it there. My brother had a friend who worked in the dairy farm, which was next to the old dam, where Avalon is. Avalon used to be a dam. It was a beautiful big old white dairy horse. At the end of the day my brother would take the horse back to the dairy. The horse pulled the dairy cart with those big milk cans. They delivered milk in cans and then later they delivered bottles of milk. If you ran out of coupons you would put your money in the bottle, outside on the pavement. There was no theft.”

Rita’s father was a tram conductor and then he became an inspector. Her mother was a seamstress in a factory in town.

Her father would work in the garden whenever he had a moment. “My dad had the most wonderful garden; I remember the dahlias and any flowers you can dream of. He used to live in his garden. When he finished work he used to change into his old khaki pants and go straight into his garden. People used to walk past and stop and stare and say, ‘Mr. Landman, your garden is the most beautiful garden…’ Ach, yes, he was a real gardener…

Women would dress smartly with hats and gloves and matching handbags: “My mom used to dress up in high heel shoes and long gloves and a hat with a feather in it. She was always dolled up. Every Saturday we used to go to town and we really dressed up in high heel shoes and hats and matching bags. We went by bus. We would walk down to Broadway and catch the bus near the shops.”

Rita’s first job was “in the City of Johannesburg, in the City Hall, on the 4^th Floor in the City Engineer’s Department. "I was in a typing pool.”

 

Rita remembers going to the Chinese grocery shop for her mother. “As a child of seven or eight, my mom used to send me to the Chinese shop. She would say, ’Go and buy on the book, ten pennies sugar and a loaf of bread, or whatever. And they would give it to me and write in the book under Mrs. Landman. And at the end of the month she would go and pay on the book.”



Rita's home today



Settlers Stores also featured in Rita’s childhood. “My mom used to be very good friends with Abraham. She used to sew and he would help her with materials and cotton. And Abraham had a son and my older brother and the younger Abraham used to know one another. The whole family just went on and on and on with Settlers’ Stores.“

The extended family used to visit the Bez Valley house on a Sunday. “On Sundays was a family lunch and then my mom’s sisters would come and my dad’s family would come and we would have this huge skaapbout and veggies and rice. And the whole family came, and the nephews and cousins and all the children used to play outside. It was continuous play…

We used to swim at the swimming pool at Rhodes Park. As children, we would walk up there at 10 at night in our swimming costumes…”

There were a lot of Jewish people in the area. “Both our neighbours were Jewish; Mr. and Mrs. Sanders on the one side and Mr. and Mrs. Ehrlich on the other".