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Do you Remember When?

August 2009

A Few Snippet  Reminders from Jeff Miller ? Primary School Days

Remember the School Fetes

Remember Jannie?s Gym Displays with The Berlowitz Boys and Gary ????

Remember Witpoortjie

Little bottles of milk with silver paper lids at break

Mrs Rudner?s Hot Dogs in the Primary school Tuckshop (Best in the west!!)

 Mr Konviser Chasing Eric around the room after he replaced his coke cup with an empty cup. When koniie got his coke back he just pored it over Eric!!

 

1956-1958

Nursery School

Jeff Miller

How many of us were at King David Nursery School and what do we remember.

o   Hot lunches served every day

§  The favourite pudding was Royal instant pudding (Vanilla or Chocolate)

o   Playing with soapy water in the big troughs was fun

o   Sleeping on Green Canvas beds for an hour till we were fetched.

o   Three Wheeler bicycles on the cement track

o   Always being the handle for the sivivon at Chanukah ?cause I was tall. (In the Dance Sivivon Sof Sof Sof)

o   The red bicycle was only aloud to be used by David Aronowitz. It was his fire engine.

o   The old house on the corner where the caretaker stayed was haunted!!

o   People in our liftscheme (Car Pool today)

§  Eric Stillerman, Eric Margolis , Kenny Taub, Larry Koren, Michael Becker, David Aronowitz, Ester Hurwitz, ? Gillman

o   The tiny open toilet cubicles

o   Lockers with pictures on. Can?t remember what my picture was though.

1964

Sex lectures in Standard 5

 Davidoff
Talking about Chappies Do you remember the Wicks bubble gum that had the Beatles pictures in them We were in Standard 5 at the time and having our famous sex lectures The boys and perhaps the girls as well who volunteered to ask embarrassing questions were rewarded with one of the Wicks gums ? big and pink (1 penny each) (Chappies were 2 for a penny I thinK) A really embarrassing question was rewarded with the Paul McCartney prize

Michelle Hellman 

 

Do not remember the sex lectures and Wicks nor the Beatles inside. And I loved Paul McCartney best. Still think his great song was meant for me!
Phil Cramer
I remember the sex lectures and Kenneth Taub?s embarrassed giggling. I was also a Beatles fanatic back then and grew my Beatle haircut as much as the ?hair police? would allow it. John Lennon was my favorite. I loved his writing and based a lot of the writing I did back then on his and Spike Milligan?s sense of absurdity.(Cramer)
I remember the sex lectures very well. Tthey were conducted by Jeanette Cohen, Penny?s mom (see Penny?s outstanding article on Bessie Taurog for those who remember Bessie, on the 1968 Matric year website http://www.classof68reunion.com/index.htm). Mrs Cohen told us not to feel embarrassed if we wanted to laugh and that we should just lift our desks and put our heads inside. Kenneth Taub (remember him) spent much of the hour with his head buried there.(Sharp)
Michelle the boys were seperated from the girls for this subject and we were given the full monty so to speak. (Leveen)
Stan Seeff
By the way bach to the Beetle Wicks, I remember so vividly winning a Paul McCartney wrapper from Ashley, for taking up the challenge of asking a very embarrasing question of the teacher (dont remember her name) who had the best legs ever. (Seeff)
Davidoff
Stan ? ? I do remember the question ? We were concerned about getting stuck ? and the embarrasing  consequences ?  This was prompted by my having seen  a large male dog (Alsation I think) having it out with our tiny Maltese poodle ? and the act was interrupted (coitus interruptus) by the Davidoff boys who did not know what was happening The Alsation ) went bolting down our garden  with our white Maltese in tow ? What a site !
The Snowstorm
Sam Sharp
Eric: just for the record, the year it snowed on our birthday was 1964. I was in Jannie Jansen?s class Also, it was not the first one of our lifetime. August 28, 1962, the date sticks in my mind for no reason other than it was an amazing morning. But by lunchtime the snow was gone. The ?64 storm lasted about three days. There was another in 81 but I had left by then.
Greta Beigel Came to School (Form I or II)
Phil Cramer
Greta Beigel is/was a concert pianist in South Africa. She came to play at KDHS. I thought it was when we were in form I but Sam thinks it was when we where in Form II. Either way ?the Philistines (our class) was marched in first and had to sit in the front. Calling us Philistines was Sandler?s favorite phrase.The concert. She was a great classical pianist but speaking for myself, my head was full or Beatles and Rolling Stones songs. It was her playing style that was at the root of the whole problem. She played piano like an alcoholic crab suffering from an advanced case of DT?s. Naturally, the Philistines could barely contain their giggles. I recall stuffing my tie into my mouth o stifle my laughter. Other students around me were doing the same. I recall that some of the teachers including Pee Wee Pierce were sitting on the floor on the side laughing as well.Then, if memory serves me well, Stephen Barnett farted loudly. Ties flew out of mouths and the laughter became overwhelming. Greta Bagel leapt off the stool, slammed down the keyboard cover, yelled at the audience and stormed off the stage.Marylin Grusd, the head girl then came up on stage and berated us calling us uncivilized and worse. I seem to recall that those responsible were ordered to report to Sandler?s office though I cannot recall if anyone actually did.

I spent part of the last weekend sitting in the sun by the pool with Ralph who was visiting from Boston. I recalled the incident with him but he didn?t mention any special role he played in the incident.

Marilyn Grusd lives in Los Angeles and was quite friendly with my parents. I have reminded her of the incident on a few occasions. She?s able to laugh at it and I told her a loud fart was what caused the figurative dam wall to break. She also admitted that she wanted to burst out laughing as well.

That is the story as best I remember it. Any further elucidation would be welcome. (Cramer)

Eric Stillerman
Hi Phil ? Great story ? remember it like yesterday ? the pianist flipping and flopping all over the piano to uncontrollable unremitting hysterical laughter all over the primary school hall?Form 1 B were the scape goats in the abscence of any other honest volunteers who would own up ? we were the (only?) ones who had to line up en masse for flaps!!!I have this story in my bio to post soon ? do you mind if I quote some of the facts from your version ? like Greta Beigel, Stephen Barnett?s fart and Marilyn Grusd?
Sam Sharp
Peewee was in stitches
She banged down the piano lid and yelled ?I will not play for this audience?
It was held at the primary school hall and we all walked over there.
It was on a FRiday. Normie was not present and I remember spending the weekend wondering what trouble we were in on the Monday. But to my recollection, nothing happened.(Sharp)
KDS 0 Vorentoe 76
Rugby Under 13
Terry Levenberg
I was just enjoying Eric?s most recent bio writings and thought I?d relate one of the few clear memories I have about playing rugby at school. In Form 1 we were useless. I was particularly so because I had not discovered until Form 2 that I need glasses on a prescription of -6 in each eye. In our first game we played Vorentoe on Gemmill Park. We were beaten 76-0 and were very lucky to get the nil. But the real moment of the match, without question, was a flying scissors tackle feet first that would have made The Rock proud by Eric. It was a moment of true madness and exhilaration that forever characterised Eric for me. I have a speech that I give called ?A clown in ze head, and a love in ze heart.? It refers to a quote by the great Jean Pierre Rives who said that it was that, which characterised the way the French play.
Three years later we played Vorentoe and won. We had been trained by (I think) Gaby Lurie and he had given us some self-belief and a lot of fitness. It was a good note for me to retire from rugby given that I still never once saw the ball. (Levenberg)
We Opened and Closed the Windows and Painted Our Noses Red
Naomi Perkel
I would like to add apice to Sam?s story about Rabbi Isaacs. Rabbi Isaacs liked the class windows to be open and Rabii Katz liked the windows to be closed. Wehad the Rabbis teach us back to back. So before Rabbi Isaacs came ini, we made sure that the windows were closed. So when he came in, the firt five minutes were spent opening the windows. Then when Rabbi Katz came in, the first five windows were spent closing the windows.
Rabbi Isaacs tried his best to teach us Rashi. For many years I regretted not learning to read this because of all the nonsense we performed in his class. So one day I downloaded the alphabet conversion from the internet, and now I can read Rashi. I wonder why it weemed unrumountable then. However during one of Rabbi Isaacs classes, the girls passed around a tube of red paint. We all dribbled the paint under our nose and told him that there was a virus going around that caused us to have bloody noses. We all spent the lesson in the washroom giggling and taking the paint off our faces. He was a very kind and patient man and let us go along with our pranks. (Perkel)
MDA Does CPA on a Dog
Jeff Miller
For all the Doctors ?.. remember when the Marshak?s dog was invoved in a fight, and was choked and stopped breathing as the dogs were separated??
Up pops Dr Lennie Steingo??MDA First Aider, and does CPR on the dog.
Alls well that ends well. (Miller)
Klopper Gets Nailed
(Stillerman)
Form 2 K Mr Dave Klopper?s Class. He would grab your neck, squeeze and say ?Stillerman, why have you not done your hoomeework???!!? and not let go?Incident 1 of the year: Klopper comes in one afternoon to do the Register. Sits on his chair and gets up again very slowly lift a drawing pin up from his seat in his hand and holding it up in front of the class in bemusement! As I knew nothing about this, I naturally burst out laughing ? enthralled that I had finally seen someone sit on a drawing pin on his chair! Needless to say?. No one else laughed as most of the guys knoew what was going on! So I was prime suspect number 1! We had to stay in all afternoon until I (or someone else) would finally own up! Eventually we got home? but guys kept coming up to me for years after that ? saying ?Stillerman, why didn?t you own up to putting the drawing pin on Klopper?s chair??!!? Decades later, about 10 years ago, a guy comes up to me in our Shul and says: ?Stillerman ? you know who put the drawing pin on Klopper?s Chair??? It was ME!!!?(None other than the famous Lesley Singer himself!!!) I guess some of you guys knew that all along ? didn?t you?
One thing about the Drawing Pin and Klopper. In the states a drawing pin is a thumb tack. Les got his body parts mixed up and thought it was a bum tack. If anyone sees Les tell him I did not mind the collective six hours of detention as the look on old ?Cmon People?s? face when he sat on the pin was worth six hours of interrogation. Old Klopper loved squeezing our shoulders in a vice grip between his thumb and index finger. He must have just learned the worth of having an opposing thumb having climbed down from the trees a few years before he got his job teaching at KDHS
Six Day War 1967 and Mr Lowrie
(Stillerman)
June 6 1967 ? the start of the Six Day War ? Intercom relays of news and announcements by the Boss. I remember the prevailing fear of what could happen to Israel with all the Arab nations turned against it. The blockade of the Straits of Tiran. Egypt declaring War, joined by Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and the Arab League? Miraculously, suddenly we heard that Israeli Jets had destroyed the Egyptian Airforce in the first few hours of Day 1, and Israeli tanks were starting to advance towards the Sinai and eventually the Suez Canal. Then the liberation of Jerusalem and the Waling Wall, and the Golan Heights. And in Six Days it was miraculously over. The celebration and pride were perhaps one of the highest points in our modern history, not least for the removal of the threats surrounding Israel ?- at least for the immediate future. Sadly the hope for an early peace was not to be realised and still remains the major challenge facing Israel today.Mr Lowrie caused some controversy at this time by apparently saying that ?The Jews have as much right to Israel as the Chinese have to Australia?. I think in the KD environment at that time, he had to take leave of absence?! He did return sometime later.
Rugby Team gets Drunk 1969
(Shapiro)
I recall an incident on the tour to Herzlia in 69. Jeff Miller was the first aid man for the Rugby team but forgot to empty the Vodka from his water bottle from the train trip down so you can imagine what happened when the first drink of water was needed! Team, as I recall, was Paul Paster, Ralph Judah, willie Brouze, Harold Janks, Les Ossip,Eric Stillerman, Manfred Levy, Barry Judelman, bobby Heilbrunn, Hilton Cohen, Raymond Friedman Brain Davidoff, Errol Price, Yours truly and Neil Milner. Uncle Norman was not impressed. Wonder where most of them are.
Dissecting Frogs with Mrs Peiser
Janice Kooper
OMG I just remembered something about Mrs Peizer.. or was it Pieser? she used to sit on the desk in front of the class and she had these really awful legs with veins on them and she used to cross her legs in front of the class so you could see her undies. She made us disect a frog and the ?darems? of the frog reminded me of her crossing and uncrossing her legs eww!
The Ridge
Naomi Perkel
When I think of you guys there on a September day, I think back on the crisper September spring mornings, and the peaceful setting of our school overlooking the suburbs from the ridge. I loved the architecture of our admin block, despite this being the workplace of the ?BOSS?. I always enjoyed the view and fresh air from the ridge and relatively undeveloped spacious area that the school occupied. I especially enjoyed August and September, as the blossoms emerged and there just seemed to be something serene about looking down from the school toward Sandringham.
One last memory that came back to me was social studies with MS. Berman in Form 1. She was teaching us something about a hermit, which I think related to one of the Christian reformists who lived alone for a long time. To illustrate what a hermit was, she pointed to a guy who we could occasionally see walking up above the ridge near the form 1 classrooms. So after that we used to look for the ?hermit?. Was someone really living up there, or was it the highveld grasses moving in the wind? Anyway I believed that there was someone. Can anyone else remember that?
Sam Sharp
Beautifully remembered Naomi. Thank you.Having lived and been schooled in its shadow throughout my youth, the ridge, silent and perennial, was somehow an important part of it for me. One would look beyond it for those dark clouds signalling an afternoon summer storm. When airplanes flew south east toward the airport and disappeared over the top it always appeared as if they were landing on the ridge and as a child I imagined a runway right there.I loved the view from the top. My dad once took a photo of the school from up there which was used for the Fete magazine cover ? 1961 or 62 I would guess. ?Mens sana in corpore sano? was on the cover and must have been feature article for some reason. I wonder if any copies remain.I remember in the early years how few lights there were up there when it got dark. Later there were many more as a paved road went in and houses started to appear. My friends the Lippa twins moved up there and I remember going to their Barmi a week after mine. Also Ivan Kalmeyer, the Linksfield pharmacist, and his family lived there. My mom worked for him as a locum occasionally. I now see him and his wife Sally quite often on Thursday nights at the local shopping centre and we chat about the old days.

Naomi, I think that there was a hermit who lived up there. He had a shadowy presence the way most hermits would I guess but I remember frequent references to him.

At the end of Standard five the entire class climbed the ridge and walked along the top and down to Giloolys farm where we had a picnic and played soccer etc. Ronnie Epstein and I took a radio along and we listened to the commentary of first cricket test between South Africa and England at Kingsmead as we climbed ? so that puts a date on it ? Friday December 4th,

Lindsay Leveen
Wow the Ridge! Naomi and Sam what wonderful memories of the ridge. Sam James and I would climb the ridge and go over on the other side to my home in Cyrildene. We would do this perhaps two or three times a year. One time when we were about ten, we thought we saw the hermit and we got scared and started to run down on the narrow path. Sam slipped and landed on his arse. He also landed on a little cactus bush and let out this wail. I thought the Hermit had captured him. I remember this like yesterday and I am still bang of the Hermit and also bang of cactuses. That ridge traversed quite a bit of Joburg. From Gillolys to the wilds and then onto westcliff. I remember hitching from Huddle park to get home and crossing the ridge using Silvia?s Pass. Do you guys remember the swiss chalet looking house on Silvia?s Pass? I also remember another pass that came down from upper houghton to lower houghton and of course the road through the wilds. The ridge actually defined joburgs geography for me. There was a second ridge to the south of the ridge called the Kensignton ridge. From our house in Cyrildene we could look north to the linksfield ridge and south to the Kensington ridge. There actually was quite a bit of history during the boer war along kensington ridge. Perhaps I will make make a movie someday called a ?ridge to far? We are almost upon the dtae of the reunion. One question Sam do you really know that you and Eppie walked the ridge on Friday December 4 1964 and was Charles Fortune the commentator on the transister radio?
Fish and Chips with Vinegar
Terry Levenberg
I saw something Lev had said about where the Radium Beer Hall was. This s what I said:No no no ? your memory fails you. It is but one street away from Gallagher?s corner bang smack in the middle of Orange Grove. Every day we would wait there in the evening for my father to get off the bus from work. My sister and I would hide in the back seat and my father would ask inquiringly where the kids were. We thought it was great sport. In those days, the Radium was a hole in which drunks and devil worshippers hung out ? a place of iniquity. For a while in the late 80s it became a reputable little restaurant with a great trade in prawns piri piri. But my personal favourite was a tiny little shop about half a block up next to the Indian tailors there that sold the obligatory slap chips in vinegar. I have never encountered a delicacy of its nature anywhere else in the world.
Colette Hatchuel  and Sheryl Lopis
Colette Hatchuell! Friends for so many years and who knew you had such an exciting if tragic story in the family? How well I remember the time spent in you family home in Savoy! I also remember clearly the day your nanny washed your brother?s hair with NAIR! Far cry from the Shema and Tzitzit thread but friendhsip threads are forever.

A Whole Lot of Stuff

 Aubrey Ginsberg and Raymond Abel

South Africa in our day. A real blast from the past ? brings a tear to one?s eye ?
? mainly Jo?burg ?

Very nostalgic ?more memories!
STATS INFO AND MEMORY CHECKS
HILLBROW
The Curzon and Clarendon for 7/6d (later 75c).
And then a Bioscope called the International (owned by Herman and Maxwell Youngelson) was opened at the top of Pretoria Street, and there it would cost you between 90c and R1.00, but the seats were so comfy and the whole bioscope was so plush, that the Yeovillites felt it was well worth the extra.
Anyone remember The French Hairdressing Salon (a Mrs. Sher was the manageress), and the OK Bazaars?
SAYINGS
· I?m going for a goof this arvy.
· Scopes.
· Flicks.
· What?s the ?Aggie??
· Hy het haar uitgeskop, verstaan jy my.
· Check my new jammy!
· We going to Durbs with the car, probably see lots of Vaalies there, all the ou toppies, tannies and ooms, nie waar nie?
· My ol? lady! My ol? man.
· My broer! My sussie.
· Knobkerrie. Sjambok.
· It?s so hot, I?m vrekking off here.
· Baie mooi.
· He lives in the Gamadoeles.
· She lives out in the Bundu.
· The Dingas.


FOLKSINGING ERA:
Who remembers the Nite Beat, run by Abe (who ran the tuck shop at the Yeoville Swimming Pool)?
And the folk-singers Ian & Ritchie ( Ian Lawrence and Ritchie Morris), Des and Dawn (Lindbergh) (?And the Seagull?s name was Nelson? ? Dawn wore her hair in two pigtails then), Dave Marks (?Mountains of Men?), Cornelia And The Troubador, The College Set (Andy Levy, Hugh Solomon, Norman Cohen), Keith Blundell and the Baladeers, Aubrey and Beryl Ellis, Mervyn and Jocelyn Miller (from Potch), Mel, Mel and Julian (Mel Miller, Mel Green, and Julian Laxton)?
BIKERS and the Hell?s Angels, wearing black leather jackets, chains and the peace sign often around their necks, roaring down Pretoria St and Kotze St. on Harley Davidsons, making a helluva racket, some of the Biker girls nervously hanging precariously onto their boyfriend?s back, but ?the in-girls? didn?t hold on, they held on behind the seat, looking around, throwing their hair back, with a ?don?t-sig-with-me? look, lazer beam eyes and a tattoo here and there. And nobody did ?sig? with them, either.
HILLBROW?S EATERIES and Coffee Bars:
Doney?s coffee bar for the best cappuccino in town (who remembers Jeftah and the Duke?), Caf? Wien (later on, with the most comfortable seats ? it was like sitting in your own lounge), Caf? Krantzler, Dunk-a-donut, The Milky Lane, the Florian (where the bus turned to go down Claim street to Town), Mi Vami, Lucky Luke (Steak House in the 70¹s), Fontana (open 24 hours a day, famous for their chickens roasted on a spit), Pikin-a-chicken, Porter House (Frulatto and the best Pink Sauce in town), not to mention the steaks
HAIR STYLES.
We dyed our hair black with Palette where you dropped a white tablet into some black gunky muck and we all had pitch black hair. The Blacker your hair, the more ?sharp? you were. We teased it and wore it in Wings, and the bigger the Wings were, the more ?with it? you were. And remember the stiff petticoats under your flared skirts, and cat-eye glasses.
Hair was like a Bird?s Nest at the back, but then (just as well). Boys wore their hair sleeked back with Brylcream and Vitalis, and all bought their t-shirts from the Skipper Bar (Arnie, Mervyn, Earl and Barry Sacks). Black t-shirts with a thin white and red stripes around the neck. And a corresponding white t-shirt, with black and red stripes.
And then girls started to iron their hair. Moms used to plonk heads onto the ironing board, and put a brown paper bag on top of it, and iron away until you had straight hair, but then the minute it rained, It looked as though someone has plugged you into an electric socket! Durbs did the same to all those who had out-of-control hair ? frizzed them out in 2 minutes flat, in fact as soon as you got to Van Reenen?s Pass into Natal, you knew you were there because your hair suddenly was on its own mission!!

GYM:
Bodybuilders, weight-lifters and wannabes came strutting out of Gyms such as Sam Busa and Monte Osher all fit and glistening with muscles, and killer smiles ? carrying black gym bags. And Reg Park?s Gym, not sure where it was.
MODEL AGENCIES: Stella Grove and Gianna Pizanelli.
DANCING STUDIOS: Mercedes Molina, Jeffrey Nieman and Rhoda Rifkin, Bernice Hotz and Gitanella (Spanish, Ballet).
ONLY IN SOUTH AFRICA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
· I dopped my exams and my folks are having a cadenza.
· Chips, here comes the Teacher.
· I?ll have a dop of brandy.
· Ops me a pencil.
· Baie Dankie, hoor! Aseblieftog!
· Plaasjapie.
Around 1964 came the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the Mini Skirt era and Mary Quant and the birth of the Discotheque. Op-Art earings in gaudy colours and the skirts continued to get shorter. Girls wore double-breasted pinstripe suits which made a come-back. The Boutiques were born. The BENATER family had a great boutique at the top of Rissik Street, or near there. It was, I think, the first shop of its kind. Very modern, trendy and for the young (20?s and 30?s).
Remember Twiggy?!!! She was on every magazine cover, often holding her Teddy Bear, feet pigeon-toed, with beautiful big brown eyes, and a body so thin she could fit through a crack in the wall. She started a trend, her and ?the Shrimp? (Jean Shrimpton), and Mary Quant.
Op-Art ear-rings in strange shapes and gaudy colours, shorter skirts, and flattie shoes.
The first DISCO was at the Summit Club, Marrakech (around 1966) with Go-Go dancers Dixie, Felicity Fouch? and Christine, all dancing away in the micro-est of Mini-Skirts. Johnny Martin (previously known as Martin Raff) was the owner, and I heard he also owned a club called 007.
Someone called Neville Peacock was the Marrakech DJ and there were psycadellic and ultra violet lights and if you stood under the latter, all your klein-goed shone like a beacon for all to see.
And the 505, also in Hillbrow. Eddie Eckstein and Paul Ditchfield ? The Bats ? played there on a Sunday, as did the Basemen (Ronnie Cline on Keyboard, Ralph Simon ? Singer, Rodney Caines ? Bass Guitar, Leon Bilewitz ? drummer and Irwin Kalis ? Lead Guitar). The Basemen also played at Club-a-go-go and around the countryside at various venues. And the Diamonds and Gene Rockwell (?Heart?!).
TJ?s (town) and The Yellow Submarine (Hillbrow) and the Boat (Buccleugh) were in the latter part of the Sixties, and the Purple Marmalade somewhere in Hillbrow. Another Disco was owned by Ray McCauley, opposite Joubert Park . His Granny worked in the tuckshop and was always so nice to everyone. And Raffles, a very fancy disco/restaurant, but that was in the late 70?s. Owned by Dave Kerney (I think).
And who remembers the other BIOSCOPES? The Collosseum with the twinkling lights. Cliff Richard sang there once, and a few girls from Barnato Park were expelled for bunking school and going to his concerts. His Majestys,Monte Carlo (French Movies), The Empire, 20th Century Fox in Pritchard Street, Cinerama (Claim and Noord). In those days there was an interval after the News and the Cartoons, and Usherettes would be standing at each exit with a tray with all the Munchies and Chocolates, cold-drinks, etc. The Apollo in Doornfontein. I?ve already mentioned the Yeoville Bioscopes earlier on. Who remembers the ?Midnight Shows??
People smoked in the bioscopes (?scopes?) then, and when you looked up, you saw it all swirling around in the projector. Nice and healthy!!, but nobody ever noticed it. It was part of life in the sixties.
Remember when we went to Bioscope on a Saturday night, dressed up in your A-line dress, or a Box-Pleated skirt, or tiny hound?s-tooth straight skirt in black and your black patent high-heeled shoes, with a black patent leather bag to match, and your gloves (which you carried in your hand)? And later you wore your dress with the shorter hemline, Mini-Skirts, and your ?A-line evening coat? (Jackie Kennedy), just on the knee, and your flattie shoes, the hair teased up to the high heavens and lacquered so heavily that if it rained, you looked like glue. (Boys hated teased and lacquered hair.)
And the boys wore jarmins and Elvis Presley hair-styles, with thin ties made of nylon or similar in a machine-crochet style. Later when the Beatles came in, boys? hairstyles changed forever, and no boy would be seen dead with Brylcream or Vitalis plastered on his head. Boys would never been seen in pastel colours, but the Beatles changed all those dark shirts for pink, mauve and lemon, with a pin collar near the tie.
Boys would buy you a 75c box of Black Magic chocolate at interval. If you put it into your black patent leather handbag and never offered him one, then your name was mud, and girls judged boys by whether or they opened the car door for you or not!
And some of the MOVIE STARS: Natalie Wood, Kathryn Hepburn, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Steve McQueen, Sohia Loren, Alain Delon (the heart-throb of the 60?s ? who remembers him in ?Purple Noon??), Gina Lollobridgida, Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson (One Flew over the Cuckoo¹s Nest), Shirley MacLaine, Julie Christie, Michael Caine, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Sal Mineo, Suzanne Pleshette, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Omar Sharif, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck ?
Popular MOVIES AND MUSICALS: West Side Story, King Kong, Gone with the Wind, Exodus, From Russia with Love, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Annie Get your Gun.
And the DRIVE IN?s. Old Pretoria Road , Jhb Drive-in, The 5-Star (Eloff St. Ext), The Velskoen. If a girl was seen at the drive in with a boy, she got a ?bad name,? and the same for the Caf? Bio?s. It was just not for a nice Jewish girl!!
Remember when!?there was NO Bioscope on Sunday nights?
THEATRES: Alhambra (Doornfontein), Brian Brooke (Braamfontein), Market Theatre ( Newtown ), Alexander theater, Jacques Brel, Apollo in Doornfontein.
Remember the Adverts for all the Cigarettes? Players, Craven ?A?, Dunhill (remember the maroon Rolls Royce?), Benson & Hedges (Gold), Lexington (?That?s the one!?), Gunston (remember him on a raft, all manly, unshaven and
rough and ready?), Horseshoe Tobacco, Gold Dollar, Texan (which the boys would hold between their thumb and middle finger), Lucky Strike, Gauloise and Peter Stuyvesant (for the fun lovers, remember the wonderful places they went to and the great clothes they wore, swimming in lagoons, skiing down snow-capped mountains, all the beautiful people, having wonderful fun?). I never smoked (well, I have to say that, in case my family read this article, ha ha), but after I watched the Peter Stuyvesant adverts, I really felt like buying a packet, so that I, too,
could go to all those magical places, HA HA (the power of advertising!).
The in folks in Yeoville, Observatory, Cyrildene in the 60?s were Gerald Fox, Jonny Grossmark, Barry Sacks, Vivian Stillerman, Elaine Margolis, Charmian Clayton, Sharna and Nadja Isaacs (aka Lerman), Frances Siegenberg,
someone we called Shirley Shtub (but it was probably Sztab), Jeff Landsman, Rayna Cohen. And also another crowd: Ruth Margolis (Cyrildene), Yvette, Esther and Naomi Sofer, Heather Garrun.

The School Fetes (Jeff Miller)

OK so let?s think back to those AMAZING days.  I will not be verbose and eloquent about them because I am neither verbose nor eloquent. I will rather just jot down a few bullet points as they come to mind and I am sure it will jiggle many of your brain cells as it did to mine.

·         The bowling Green at the Primary School

·         Hessian Sides on the Stalls

·         The Fishpond

·         The Tombola Stall

·         Raffling a Car!

·         Bubbles Myers in the Hamburger Stall

·         The Ozens making that strange Israeli dish?.. Felafel

·         Max Schneider Z?L? with the incessant announcements

·         The busses picking up people at EMDINS CORNER

·         The wonders of the Polaroid Camera

·         Titus washing cups and saucers in the Braganza Tea Trailer

·         My Dad building stalls

·         Max Fletcher building

·         Norman Lippa the electrician

·         Hilton Sher setting up the PA

·         The Mayor arriving for the official opening each year

·         The Gym Display

·         Darts and other games of chance

·         The pre recorded horse racing game

·         Oshy Tugenthaft with his own stall

·         The book stall with all the old comics and LP?s

·         Candy Floss

·         The Fete Magazine

·         Collecting bottles for Barney Meyer?s stall

·         Hot Beef on Rye

·         Potato Latkes

·         My sister getting lost and me getting a warm klap from my dad for not looking after her

The last Fete which I know about was held about 20 years ago, and was convened by Stan Kahan and Lennie Milner (Both now resident in Sydney). The food (of which there was plenty!!!) was convened by my wife, Cheryl and thousands of meals were served on the day.

I suppose that the thing that sticks out now is that in those days we did not need C.S.G. (Communal Security Groups)at any functions as we have to do today, no matter where we are in the world!!!