92958p
Living in Linksfield Johannesburg
Married to Mark
daughter Justine
son Robert
Biography
Which brings me back to 1963 ? arriving at King David in the 2nd term on the day that President Weizman was visiting the school. Dr Beron told me I should never forget it. But I was a scared little girl, proud to be there as my brother had matriculated at the end of ?62 and my folks could only afford for one of us to be there. I knew Lee and a few girls whom I had met at Shtilim ? Hedi, Judy Daniels? I was put into Mrs Poplak?s class and remember feeling very shy. The hardest part was my ineptitude in Hebrew. Cheder did not prepare one for Hebrew every day. That ?group? was such a stigma! But I decided not to stay there long and by the end of the year was up to the required standard. And by that time I had made friends with the girls that made up our group right up to matric ? Mim, Illona, Hedi,and Leora. Ronni became part of that when she came to KD in Form 1. To think that Leora is no longer alive is unbelievable. Also that Mim and I still see one another regularly despite taking very different paths. Ron is my cousin so we too are in touch.
Habonim was an enormous part of my adolescence. Exposed me to ways of thinking and doing that were different from the mainstream of northern suburbs life. We loved meeting on Sunday evenings before the LM hit parade and spent hours, days, months discussing everything from politics to poetry. What we did not get at school we definitely got in Habonim. My mom worked in the Habonim office so I had a special connection and my parents were ?verbrente? Zionists. So not surprising that I decided to study in Israel after matric. I have thought about this decision often over the years ? how easily my parents let me go. I was 17! What influenced their and my decision was that my brother had made aliyah in 1968 and they thought he would take care of me. It helped but it was so hard. I went as part of a group and we spent the first six months on Kibbutz Yizreel on an ulpan. As prepared as we thought we were, nothing was quite as we had expected. And nothing prepared me for how much I would miss my parents. Mark (my husband) was part of that ulpan but I had known him from camps. He comes from Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwean boys were always cool. He completed the ulpan and decided socialism as manifested in kibbutz was not the answer and he came back to Wits. Both of us were heartbroken but I started at the Hebrew University in the fall of 1970 and graduated in 1973. I would come back to Jhb in the summers and he spent the SA summers with me in Jerusalem. WE were incredibly young but knew we wanted to be together and were married in August of 1973. 37 years ago!!! I can see why some of you have chosen to serialise your stories ? this takes time and soul searching.
Returning to Jhb after almost 4 years away was a culture shock. Firstly I had grown up and I had grown apart from most of those who were my friends at school. It was a time when you all were making plans to leave. Mark was still at university doing his Honours in Philosophy and Psychology. I took a job in the university library and that was where I met Ilse Fischer. She is a remarkable woman and she shared with me the agonies of Braam?s imprisonment, her brother and mother?s death and the cruelty of the apartheid regime. During that time Braam was diagnosed with cancer and after much negotiation they released him into the custody of his family in Bloemfontein where he died. I registered to study librarianship through Unisa and did that while I was working. Mark then applied to do graduate work at London University (University College) and we embarked on our next migration. Will send this now and continue later.
To answer a few questions first ? Ash we lived in Sydenham East, full of King David kids but not like Linksfield. But it was a suburb where we played in the street after the rain, sailing paper boats in the run-off down the hill and road our bicycles to school and ballet without any fear. A vibrant community centre, Jabula, that had a park, a swimming pool, a library that I went to at least once a week with my dad and an active dramatic society that put on annual productions. Sandringham was a suburb created for ex-servicemen and there was great camaraderie. We moved to Glenhazel when I was 16 and remember Raymond Friedman was a neighbour. He is now an ENT here in Joburg but have not seen him in years. It is interesting reading all your responses to the girl/boy scene at school. There were of course the kids who more obviously were comfortable in their own skins, but I don?t think I had any idea how hard it was for some. Not sure whether Habonim made it easier for us to socialise with boys but I too remember the anxiety and breathlessness of those early crushes. Having an older brother did not help at all as he was so much older than me that he didn?t acknowledge me until I was about 16.
I have written my story until 1975, when we decided to go to London. Mark was accepted at University College to do an MPhil and I was still studying librarianship through Unisa, so armed with several scholarships and not much else, we departed. The intention was for me to finish my studies and if possible get a job, while Mark put his mind to the serious business of philosophy. He had options to go to other universities but wanted to experience the richness of cultural life in London and we are so glad we made that decision. The culture shock in the first year was radical. The weather more than anything else drove me nuts. Mark used to drag me out on weekends as I was waiting for the sun to shine. Needless to say that would have been like waiting for Godot and as soon as I realised that the whole experience would be wasted if I continued like that, things improved. We lived in Bloomsbury in a place that was set up for graduate students from the commonwealth and it was just incredible. We had a pretty rundown apartment which took us a year to remove the smell of curry (Pakistani students preceded us), but the facilities were incredible ? seats at the Royal Albert Hall, beautiful common rooms, a pub, a garden in the middle of the square with a tennis court and just help of all sorts if we needed it. We made friends there that we retain close ties with today. Work-wise it was not that easy. I wrote and passed my exams and although I also had 2 years experience working at the Wits library, my qualifications were not recognised and I eventually took a job shelving books at SOAS (School of Oriental & African Studies). It was close to where we lived and an amazing college with many African students. Eventually they realised I could actually do all the other boring stuff that librarians do and was promoted, eventually editing the International African Bibliography which took me to other famous London libraries searching out all books on Africa. But what was best about that time was that we were close to the West End and we saw the most amazing theatre, dance and music. There were good student rates and we could walk to Sadlers Wells and we just loved it. Saw Nureyev before he was reduced to a prancing prima donna but many other incredible dancers.
After 2 years of study, Mark converted his MPhil to the PhD programme and that would take him many more years to complete. For those of you that have asked, his area of interest is philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology and his doctorate was on perception. This was happening in the latter half of the seventies, education cuts in the UK huge and it soon became clear that a job offer was not going to happen. Jonathan Suzman who was the professor at Wits had offered Mark a job to start in 1979 and after much soul-searching, we made the decision to return. Who knows if that was the right thing to do. We had been married for 6 years, wanted to start a family and more importantly needed to support ourselves. Our parents had been making small contributions but neither family was rolling in boodle and we made this decision for right or wrong. I went back to working at Wits and Mark has been there ever since.
It was hard returning to Joburg of that time. Political unrest was rife in the aftermath of the Soweto uprising and we had to decide what roles we wanted to play in changing things here. Neither of us were activists although we had very strong beliefs about the injustice and wrongness of it all. Working at the university enabled us to interact with people outside of the northern suburbs and we believe we lived in a very different way from that our parents generation. We still do. Our daughter was born in 1980 and I had the deluded belief that no-one could take better care of her than me. So for two years the poor child had me around her most of the time until I thought I would go crazy and enrolled her at a playschool and looked for a job. A friend was one of the managing editors at Drum Magazine and chatting one day he asked me if I thought I could sort out their photo library. This consisted of 5 boxes of pictures, many of which had no info about them and it took me about ten years to establish a really great newspaper library. I have been in press libraries ever since, going to Sunday Times in 1992. My current job is running the digital archive for 5 newspapers in the group and I still love it.
Will add just a few more things ? son born in 1984, 2 weeks after my mother died of breast cancer and I still find it hard to deal with that loss. But now have beautiful married daughter, Justine and a son who for good or bad people say looks just like me. His name if Robert, named after my mom Rita. Enough for today! Rugby score SA 22, Australia 10. Looks promising.