UNIVERSITY OF THE WI7WATERSRAND
HISTORY WORKSHOP
THE MAKING OF CLASS
9 - 1 4 February,
1987
AUTHOR:
B. Nasson
TITLE:
1
"She preferred living in a cave with Harxy
the snake-catcher": Towards an Oral History
of Popular Leisure and Class Expression in
District Six, Cape Town, c. 192Os-195Os'
The area
at Cape Town known aa District Sin officially cane
into existence in the nineteenth century. It was adjacent to
the central
away from
business district
of the
city and a mere nose
local factory production. The sweat and skills of
its mostly
the Cape
poor Inhabitants sustained the Infrastructure of
Town economy - retailing, services and small-scale
secondary manufactures.
Six was
an almost
locality with
bound petty
By the
twentieth century
exclusively
relations of
working
class
District
residential
propinquity and community which
bourgeois inhabitants to the proletariat around
them. Its demographic and social context was that of a still
lingering cosmopolitanism;
of urban
despite the
racial segregation,
and Italians
population
still lived
of
strengthening pulse
some Immigrant
Jews, Britons
cheek-by-jowl with
Coloured
Capetonlans
and
the
a
majority
trickle
of
Africans.
Up to
the time
District Six
homes in
of the
population and
forced
the final
removal
rubbling
of
of
the
their
the 1970s, the area had an identity and an Imagery
rooted in
a sense
localism.
Its
richly
apartheid
of separateness
shoestring
varied
and
and social and cultural
terraced
introverted
streets
way
of
reproduced
life,
marked
a
by
interests, traditions and values which powerfully shaped its
distinctive popular
particular,
the
largely
throbbing popular
the
most
striking
community. The
and practices
sociability, culture
autonomous
and politics.
development
of
In
a
recreational and cultural life was one of
characteristics
persistence and
through
the
of
the
District
adaptations of
first
half
of . the
Six
its customs
twentieth
century gave
and local
legitimacy and
expression to local creativity
impulse. Using oral evidence to illuminate levels
of popular experience not accessible in documentary sources,
this study
hopes to
provide, if
not a
window, at least a
peephole into how some fragments of leisure experience moved
in the lives and consciousness of people in District Six.
Clearly,
in
the
enterprise, it
marketing
of
is virtually
leisure
impossible
as
to
capitalist
think
of
the
District Six street or neighbourhood without considering the
distribution of
going was
cinema as
a popular
unguestionably the
entertainment in
most
the interwar
institution.
popular
form
Cinemaof
paid
years, continuing to grow in
attraction through the 1940s and 1950s. The local 'bioscope'
occupied a
very special
the community,
went in
a place
order to
the humdrum
widened
a
'bioscope'
tended
week.
It
to
neighbourhood National.
distant West
matinee haunt
in the
and children
dream world
of
the
regular and habitual, as
their
audience
appeal
and
to transport people out of themselves and
confines of
least once
both adults
Attendance was
continually
imaginative power
the recreational life of
to which
be cocooned
flickering screen.
films
niche in
End off
their work
is
and domestic
important
be
firmly
Star or
emphasise
local.
City.
Somerset Road
to
or
lives at
that
Thus,
the
the
more
even
(a favourite
Saturday
for District Six children, which had a rococo
downstairs milkbar to lure them during intervals), assumed a
location in
pub.
The
community life
local
character
establishments outside
not unlike
of
cinemas
of District"
that of the English
extended
to
Six; inhabitants
some
lived
within easy
town. It
strolling distance
was only
for Europeans
after the
only one
of 'a
lot of
bioscopes in
War that the bioscopes became
side and
the Coloured
people
the
other side, and you couldn't enter in the wrong side.' 1 Preapartheld Cape
even working
their own.
Town had
a wider range of open venues which
class cinema-goers could customarily regard as
Thus, while 'mostly we had our own bioscopes ...
the Colosseum and the Alhambra was close for us too.' 2
One or
two cinemas
S'ir Lowry
Road or
were converted
shops or
activities.. But
the
as an
beloved
locals
the National,
While
they
like
the
the Onion,
tended
to
be
appearance, their
the Empire,
by emigre Jewish
adjunct to their trading
purpose-built. Independent
unpretentious in
West End,
warehouses owned
ran them
British Bioscope,
Avalon. were
general area - like the City on
Wolfram's Bioscope in nearby Woodstock -
entrepreneurs who
theatres.
in the
the
and later, the
cinemas or picture
fairly
names -
the British
fftar.
small
and
the Star,
the
Bioscope - dripped with
the promise of glamour or old Imperial splendour. The Avalon
alone had
an imposing
structure with clean sweeping lines,
decor, and accoutrements to match the glitter of its name.
There was
clearly more
to 'going to the bioscope' than the
building Itself,
however spartan
pavement outside
there were
danced
in
entertainers
front
with
of
often
patrons
performing
commercially competitive
or
1930s
comfortable.
buskers
or
other
animals.
and
1940s
who
On
the
sang
and
inventive
And
in
street
in
the
particular,
cinema attendance was surrounded by a great paraphernalia of
promotion and
advertising. Managers who 'were all sharp and
shrewd ...
these people
variety of
methods to
who opened bioscopes' 3 used a rich
promote current and future showings;
adept use was made of the foyer, the environs of the cinema,
its staff,
and even
pavement. For
of children
casually plucked from the
Alexander Korda's The Drum (with Sabu, 1938),
a famous
Kiplingesque potboiler, the imaginative manager of
the Star
kitted out
model wooden
fort complete
entrance, and
like you
turbans was
and
from nice
down
in
pink crinkle
advertisements to
Street,
the people
a
Jack erected at the
each 'to wear hats
Indians you
were called,
Hanover
pith-helmet, had
children 2d
the proper
what they
in a
with Onion
paid several
see on
made up
the doorman
get in
I think
India ...
... they were
paper. They had to walk up
to
give
out
walking there.' 4
bioscope
The
Jewish
family which owned and ran the Union had a unique attraction
in the
shape of
'the first Shetland pony they had here ...
in the district ... this pony was a star turn, ... really it
was.' It
pulled a trap 'which had a small board at the back
..., covered in white, and on this was written in bold print
the name of the film that was being advertised.' The Union's
manager
'used
to
drive
Buckingham
Palace,
Street, up
Cannon Street,
other bioscope
right
was, give
right
down
up
to
Buckingham
Zonnebloem,
down William
down
Street
House,
Hanover
where
the
them a shot in the eye, down into
Caledon Street where there was another bioscope ... and down
the side
Mark of
street back
Zorro (with
large cut-out
shop and
of a
fitted its
into Hanover Street.' 5 To promote The
Tyrone Power,
1940) one
cinema had a
horse fixed to a wall of a neighbouring
ushers with
black eyemasks
and
fake
silver, spurs.
Such novel
entertainments Inside and outside
the auditorium provided a further rich seam of amusement and
diversion for gawping patrons.
But no
end of
advertising wlaardry
intensely alert
film
was
and critical
thought
Ultimately, 'the
show. If
.
or
working class
found
not
first Saturday
the show
could draw and hold an
to
audience if
be
to
matinee was
Its
a
taste.
the Important
wasn't any good, man, you would get very
few people
there afterwards at the night show. The children
would come
back and say If it was rubbish when everyone was
having supper. Well, if the bioscope wasn't any good, Monday
night it
would be
empty. Han,
word used
to go
round
so
lf
quick. It was. word of mouth, that tlme. > A .united and selfconscious
audience,
reflecting
neighbourhood identity,
kind of
stable
possessed the
entertainment put
enforce its
a
on the
own celluloid
and
power to
local screen;
preferences by
cohesive
affect the
It
could
voting with
its
collective backside or by barracking. In the 1940s and 1950s
for example,
dire Afrikaans
Hulsgenoot equivalent
met with
never
of British
derisory hooting.
enjoyed
owners could
'snot en
popularity.
not afford
trane' weepies
and American
Such Afrikaner
Nervous,
(the
'B' movies)
cultural
loan-financed
forms
cinema
a long run of flops, and had to be
quick off
the mark
to change dud screenings. For Instance,
'there at
the West
End it
they would
so quick.'
would be
off with one show and
try something else the next day. Just like that,
7
The bulk
of cinema-goers
story or
both, and
chose a
film for its star or its
many developed
a
preference
for
the
products of
particular companies - Warners, MGM, Twentieth-.
Century Fox
or RKO.
Cinemas tended
to
be
contracted
to
market the films of specific studios; this gave each of them
a distinctive character and identity in the eyes of fans, so
that 'at
the Star
Avalon you
Raft, or
knew it was Twentiety-Century Fox. To see George
James Cagney
always, go
District
it was always Warner Brothers and at the
to the
Six
or Errol
Flynn,
Star.'8 The
we
would
working class
overwhelmingly
chose
always,
audiences of
American
over
more
mannered British films, much as did their class counterparts
in
Birmingham,
products were
Cardiff,
or
Glasgow.
For
the
American
slick and technically polished. They had fast
dialogue, strong
acting, and plenty of narrative and visual
movement; such features made them hugely popular with a mass
audience which
went to be entertained and not 'improved' or
educated. Films
as Depression
Public Enemy
and action were big draws, such
gangster pieces
like Little
Caesar
(1930),
(1931), and Scarface (1932). So were Westerns,
with cowboy
John Wayne
with tempo
actors like
and Gary
Gene Autry and Tom Mix, and later,
Cooper. When a massively popular genre
contained a
massively popular
days. Films
like They Died with their Boots On
Flynn, 1940),
Vera Cruz
Fastest Gun
Alive (with
pushing and
pushing to
broke. It
was really
say 'yup'
or
queues.' When
(with Gary
(with Errol
Cooper, 1954), and The
Glenn Ford, 1956) would 'have them
get in,
sometimes the doors almost
something to see ... the people would
'pardner'
the Star
star, auditoriums bulged for
when
they
screened an
were
Errol
talking
Flynn
in
the
western,
8
'Man, the
such a
people would
big event.
Just everybody
the road
really go wild then. Ooo ... It was
There wasn't
was pushing
so the
really proper queues then.
... it
used to go right across
buses and even the cars they just couldn't
pass through. And the people wouldn't move. Not even for the
bus past.'
the driver
9
The
had to
go up
some other
street to
get
pervading influence of westerns in the district
had a marked impact on the dress styles and demeanour of the
New Year
carnival, with
whooping and
troupes
like
the
'Red
Indians'
thumping through the streets with buffalo head
trappings, feathers and the Stars and Stripes.
Epics were also of marked appeal, notably the rash of stagey
Italian costume
sagas
Babylon. Demetrius
Barbarians) which
Mature and
crop of
of
the
and the
infants named
Maternity Home.
(such
as
Queen
of
Gladiators, and Goliath and tha
made local
Edmund Purdom,
1950s
box office
and predictably
Victor or
stars
of
Victor
produced a
new
Edmund from tha Peninsula
As part of their regular programme, cinemas
would also screen weekly serials (with arresting titles like
The Iron
Claw), newsreels, or animated shorts. In the 1930s
for instance,
Ranger was
'The British was famous for serials. The Lone
always good,
but Gordon
of Ghost
Cltv was now
really the best. As children, we ntver missed it. Never.'1''
Hhile
the
principal
essential to
attraction
remember that
was
the
screen,
it
is
this was only part of the total
recreational experience which the phrase 'going to bioscope'
encapsulated. Often
sound of
running through
performances
was
the
live singing, which helped to invigorate celluloid
diversions Into
mass audience
a live
musical event,
participation. In
elsewhere, 'you
would have
with
demonstrative
the British
cartoons, like
Bioscope,
as
a Tom and Jerry
and newsreel. They were English. And what was really popular
everywhere were
the screen
with the
singing the
singing of
songs. You
know, the music would appear on
words, and
song and
then the
there
would
audience would
be
a
choir
Join in the
the song ..."Just a Song of Twilight" was one of
those songs.' 1 1
The Union
and the
Empire were
known for staging elaborate
and bizarre live variety acts. A celebrated high spot of the
Union was
a canine
the appearance of a dog troupe trained to perform
fantasy of British class society. As one informant
recalled:
'... when my mother first had the Union Bioscope there
was a stage in the old bioscope, and she had heard of a
couple who had come out from England who had about
forty dogs. They were all of the miniature type and
there were a couple of larger dogs who were poodles.
Now all of these dogs were put on an act. There was the
soldier, the sailor, the tinker, the tailor, the
lovers, the nursemaid, the couple who would walk behind
the nursemaid pushing a pram with a little dog inside
the pram, dressed up with a bonnet and everything to
look like the baby and the nurse would push the pram,
she in her black uniform with a white apron, and a cap
on her head also. And the father and mother would walk
behind, he with his long pants and a cap on his head
and the mother with a dress, long dress in those days
and a boater hat, and she would walk behind. And then
there would be the dancer who would come along, and she
would be wearing something different to the others.
They had all types of dress for these dogs, and these
dogs all knew their parts. It was absolutely fantastic.
They walked on their hind legs, and their top paws were
always hanging down out of their sleeves, and the nurse
would hold the pram and push it, it was absolutely
remarkable how she would push this pram along the
stage, and the pram would cut across another pram where
a couple who could not afford a nursemaid to push the
pram, where they themselves would push the pram. And
there you had the different types of life amongst the
dogs. ' "
10
This lnfomant also remembered that at the Empire:
' ... when my father acquired his bioscope he wanted a
stage there
and
he
Introduced
all
types
of
entertainment. He had the dancers with very wide
dresses and in the operating box he had a light going
with all variegated colours and as this person would
intertwine her very wide skirsts, it was like a fairy,
red, pink, mauve, green, yellow, ... a heliotrope and
it would go on all these colours, and the audience
would go mad ... And then they had a review of singing
and dancing, and then he had the strong man picking up
weights, different kinds of weights and dumb bells and
so on, then he had a boxing match on the stage, so they
could watch the boxing. This would be a special,
special night
... Ooh, we had such full houses when
they had the boxing o n . ' 1 3
In a
community
in
which
outside
recreation
was
mostly
defined in male terms (street gambling, sports clubs, street
bands and
choirs) the
considerable; nen
of. the
cinema was
and women regularly attended performances
together, breaking
characteristic of
Star In
social influence
through
so many
the 1940s,
the
strict
gender
separation
other leisure activities. At the
there was one noted couple of unusually
indiscriminate taste,
vividly recalled
by an
usher:
'For
many years, I don't remember how many. Row K Seats 27 and 28
were reserved
Lewis. It
on every
Saturday afternoon
didn't matter
always came.
what film
Those seats
for Mr
and Mrs
there was showing. They
were always
kept empty for than.
That was their place.' 1 4
The respectable
class saw
culture of
cinema as
reasonably safely,
and
social
the skilled and settled working
a venue
where adolescents
preserving standards
decorum.
The
matinee
could
mix
of moral behaviour
certainly
posed
fewer
problems of control for anxious parents than the Intimacy of
11
dances. For
and cosy
girls from
environment for
bioscope, my
young to
dear. We
go to
so. But
the crowd
would see
t o o . ' " In
into
you
to
home
Salt River
with a
boy
safe,
and
as in
your
other
boyfriend
dimensions
of courtship
of
and a complex
obligations socialised adolescents
the
respectability. Very
outsiders. For
to stay
in the bioscope it was a whole crowd. So
customary codes
conforming
when you sixteen ...
wasn't allowed
expectations and
area ...
that ...
leisure relations,
everyday life,
was 'only the
wasn't allowed dances ... We was too
... we
alone, or
wanting an acceptable
flirtations, there
places like
only seventeen
set of
strict homes
standards
few, it
'in those
and
seems,
self-image
attended
films
of
with
days a boy didn't court a girl in
or took a girl from Woodstock, just from our own
We were
all in the same community.' 16
Invariably,
'you couldn't have friends on the other side of town.' 1 7
No less
essential than
obedience.
A
girl
a
public
'wasn't
allowed
matinees, and
then we
had to
auntie always
used to
find out
was crucial
for women's
show
of
standards
night
come straight
shows,
home
was
only
...
my
if it was that time.' 1 8 It
standing in
a community
of other
women that they be seen to be rearing daughters or nieces in
a chaste,
respectable way;
swift and
sharp retribution.
cinema at
night threatened
control
leisure
informant, 'once
was punished
and Mabel
time
I went
for a
... we
wayward behaviour
thus invited
If cinema by day was healthy,
to
and
subvert
space.
at night
In
adult
the
efforts
case
of
to
one
to bioscope, and Lord! I
whole month. I couldn't go out, man. Me
planned it.
There was
a western, man, a
12
marvellous western
by the Star bioscope ... Ooo, the people
was pushing
get in there ... Oh heena, we had a good
time. But
so to
the next
day! Hy auntie, she slapped ma so hard,
and Mabel got It too, on the other side. She forbid me to go
to bioscope again, until after a whole month, man. We had to
tell the boys that we girls couldn't come out, and they must
just leave
us alone.
If this
one
can't
come
out,
man,
there's others. It was a sad month for me and Mabel.' 1 9
If cinema
acutely
attendance
sensitive
crossed
to
gander
social
boundaries,
differentiation.
it
was
While
the
practice of going to bioscope was wholeheartedly embraced by
both working
class and middle class patrons, there was both
a hierarchy*
of cinemas
and Internal
class differentiation
within auditoriums. Cinemas were ranked by admission prices,
hard or soft seating, programme content (Stewart Grainger at
the Avalon.
George Raft
precariously imposed
at the
Star.), and
the degree
of
order and structured experience during
screenings. At some cinemas, classes Jostled together at the
gates but
patrons
did not
mingle
sauntered
Elsewhere, In
in
upstairs
the 1940s-1950s,
nieghbourhood gangs
the
for
aisles,
plush
it became
if
as
better-off
faded
seats.
commonplace
for
like the Globe, the Reds, and the Black
Cats to monopolise certain rows, roughly bundling out anyone
foolhardy enough
appropriated as
to risk
customary territory.
element separating
mannerly from
occupying a
the
rough
from
seat which
Or food
the
had been
would be the
respectable,
the
the unmannerly. For Instance, 'you could take
in anything to the Star you know, they had just wooden seats
downstairs, so
it was
alright for
fish and chips or other
13
hot food.
But not
They had
at the
ushers there
outside to
to check
eat food.
respectably kind
of person
Avalon. no, never at the Avalon.
The
Avalon.
of bioscope.
who went
you
and
you
make
see,
you
was
stand
a
more
It was mostly a better class
there, although it was not much more to
go in there than the Star.' 2 0
Roy Rosenzwelg,
class culture
in
the
in his
in Worcester,
1920s
increasingly
recent absorbing
and
study of
working
Massachusetts, has argued that
1930s,
cinema
attendance
became
'a more controlled ... and anonymous experience
... recreation
became a
more formal
and
less
collective
experience ...
the movie theater lacked the sort of ominous
autonomy.' 21 Did the District Six proletariat
working class
experience a
similar reduction
in their class and cultural
autonomy? In
its heyday,
District Six
undoubtedly reflected
the medium
of popular
cinema in
a distinct and probably
widening class and cultural gap between patrons. The context
of this
process was,
within the
We see
area and
its human
the district
naturally,
expression in
irritating respectability
the Avalon,
battle
with
sneeringly as
of
wealth
the process of class formation itself.
defined themselves
more well-to-do
differentials
how the working classes of
against
the
visible
and
and snobbishness of neighbouring,
Walmer Estate. Gritting their teeth outside
the aspirant
the
pushing
coming from
patricians
plebs
of
who
'up there',
English' or 'Black Sea Point'. 22
that
suburb
referred
to
did
them
or as being 'Walmer
14
But the
rowdy culture
prim and
of Hanover Street prevailed over the
the genteel.
British Bioscope
reform of
did not
working class
dominant elite.
becoming more
was the
The style
of the
represent
Star
the
or
of
the
domestication
or
leisure by the cultural idiom of a
Far from
the role of the bioscope audience
passive during this period, the overall trend
other way. Inside an auditorium smelling sharply of
disinfectant, orange
spirited audience
city street
brought the
and
samoosas,
jostle and
a
open mix
highof the
Indoors. Patrons sought to move at will between
seats, under
the variously
fellow-viewers.
And
between crowds
into a
peel, chips,
indulgent or
there
and the
was
resentful gaze of
high-spirited
interplay
screen. Far from turning recreation
private and anonymous consumption activity, bioscope
transmitted a boisterous and communal style of working class
relaxation which
wa* 'such
a rumpus,
man,
people
didn't
restrain themselves. They loved it, being there, waiting for
it to
go black.'
veracity
of
the
reflection in
Six, about
apparently
There is
writer
his new
Richard
to doubt
Rive's
novel, Buckingham
the notorious
'took
no reason
to riding
usher at
up and
rough
autobiographical
Palace.
the Star
down
the
the
District
Bioscope
aisle
who
on
a
bicycle, lashing out with his belt at any unfortunate urchin
who provoked
cinema like
his displeasure.' 23 Inside the auditorium of a
the Star,
leisure behaviour
clearly became
a
raucous contest between order and freedom which both seta of
participants to wage.
managers and ushers and patrons - were eager
15
Bioscope
also
did
impersonal market
basic format
owner well
was penny
represent
institution into
was that
the
intrusion
the locality.
of
For
an
its
of a small family business, with the
known and
personally involved in operations. It
capitalism with a chubby face. Impresarios had an
engaging personal
wore a
not
presence, like 'Mr Goldberg ... he always
brown suit
and he
smoked a
cigarette, and the ash
always used to fall on his waiscoat, and when he used to sit
down the
buttons on
together because
cast
in
one
remembered by
his
waistcoat
he was
eye',
so fat.'
while
'heavy tweed
Another characteristically
of the
Empire who
Bailey Bless
say, "Good
to
always
come
Ruben of the City 'had a
competitor,
suits ...
Hertzberg,
and a
trilby
is
hat*.
conspicuous figure was the owner
'was getting bald, they called my father
Bioscope, and
when they
saw him they used to
morning Bailey Bless", or "Good afternoon Bailey
Bless", they
never called
cinema owner,
Identity
a
used
like the
from
his
else.' 2 4 The local
him anything
small shopkeeper,
customers
rather
relationship with capital and property.'
'took his
than
from
class
his
25
Families who owned and controlled cinemas were distinguished
not by
any grand
were often
cultural
manner but
marked by
by a
common touch. Relations
an easy-going
identification
with
sociability and shrewd
audiences.
Sometimes
proprietors indulged in a coarse, barnstorming style as they
waded through
the Union
was in
and she
their crowded
'would walk
order, and
would say
auditoriums. The impresario of
along the aisle to see if everything
as she
passed she would smell the dagga
in Afrikaans,
"Wle rooked da?", and she
16
would go
with a
and call this manager of hers and she walked along
stick ...
they were
dead scared of her.' As a full
house meant a full till, the Onion's hardboiled owner 'would
say "Stay
op, stay
op", and
she would
get another two or
three people - on to the benches, the benches she could do it
with ...
with the
benches she could aove them up, that was
where she got some advantage if it was a packed house.' 2 6
Undoubtedly audiences went to bioscope to be entertained and
distracted. But
bioscope in District Sis was aore than Just
the people's picture palace. It appealed because it was both
escapist yet
strongly rooted
working class
in the
everyday realities of
life. In a community riven by the division of
labour, the cinema was marked by a division of distribution.
Its Importance
went beyond the commercial marketing of mass
entertainment. Some owners hired out their venues for school
concerts. Others
workers'
granted
meetings
rallies. During
living from
the
during
World War
use
of
strikes
their
and
II, 'when
cinemas
political
almost
for
protest
everyone
was
hand to mouth, there was rationing you see, and
then suddenly there was no rice. Just mealie rice. There was
terrible anger
Bioscope for
when
Cape
then, and
a protest
Town
was
people would
go to
the
British
meeting, sometimes in the darkness,
blacked
out.* 2 7
Proprietors
with
professed ideals of public service gave benefit perforaancea
for the
poor and
unemployed during the lnterwar depression
years. Particularly
the Union
meetings
striking was
the use of the Empire and
'during the weekends for meetings and for council
as
well,
and
aaongst
the
councillors
was
Dr
Abdurahman and Isaac Persal. Well, Dr Abdurahman always wore
17
a black
fez with a tassle hanging down ... he always looked
splc and
span and
Immaculate.' For
religious denominations,
the improbable
spot to
remembered occasion,
they had
one of
the bioscope
Living,
working,
sometimes
of passage. On one
'it was a church meeting or something,
the African
area of
stage was
celebrate rites
children anointed
called Empire after the bioscope.'
The largest
converts of revivalist
recreational
shopping,
and he was
28
space
was. the
learning
and
street.
leisure
all
interacted with the collective traditions and way of life of
the street.
If the
separate,
amorphous,
and
mushrooming
popular culture of District Six was open to all, it was most
open and
it was
most energetic
constructed and
distinctly local
theatre of
on the streets in which so much of
reproduced. Derived
oral and
District Six
and customary
from
cultural traditions,
old
and
the street
settled into a form of 'folkloric'
adaptation to
a life
of general poverty and '
hardship.
Almost every
the street,
day would
for it
and entertaining
see some excitement taking place in
was home to constantly absorbing sights
spectacle. Its
vibrant communal life drew
people like a magnet, for 'outside, you could feel the life,
man. We
high
spirits
alleyways, and
his study
outdoor people, then.' 2 9 The sounds of its
were an
of
community in
never closed;
and
horseplay
yards. The
the
street
North London,
bubbled
across
pavements,
social historian Jerry White, in
culture
of
the
Campbell
Bunk
has called it, 'a theatre which
Its audience and actors were never all asleep
18
at
once.' 3 0
In
Islington, the
like
a
District
as
in
lumpenproletarian
rough culture of the street ran through life
brightly
coloured
entertainments which
like noisy
Six,
thread.
There
onlookers could
squabbles between
were
unstaged
stand back and enjoy,
neighbours over shared street
washing lines, pavement fights, swaying and toppling drunks,
or the
sorry sight of a hawker's frult-and-vegetable barrow
upending, scattering
you know,
and mashing
everyone would
locusts swarming
its contents.
run over.
down and
just
It's
'And then,
like, a
absorbing
lot
whatever
of
there
is.'31
The hubbub
of shebeens
drawing curious
over into the street,
onlookers to peep and speculate; their lure
was particularly
strong if they were linked to strangers or
foreigners: 'There
used to
also spilled
was a
house in
Java Street where there
live whatchacallits ... Swahllls. They just used to
make merry,
man. You know how those Swahilis are ... during
the weekend
it used
Saturday night
shebeen too.
to be
when they
We used
a bit
used to
to come
rowdy, especially
give a
Bop.
It
on
a
was
a
out and see what's going on.
They used
to say "You'd pay your shilling, your bob, by the
door, to
go into the bob Bop, then you find it's a shebeen,
so you
got to
There would
hop I" That's
be catcalling
what they
used to call it.' 3 ?
after well-known
'stock' street
characters, like rag-and-bone men, beady-eyed gamblers, fahfee runners, or Individuals who bore abnormalities like hare
lips or
of widely
street
hunched backs. The style. Identification, and image
recognised 'characters'
nicknames
which
was frequently
unerringly
singled
fixed by
out
an
19
individual's defect,
it
to
a
satirical,
distinction. Thus,
the 1930s
aberration or
was a
mocking,
mannerism and magnified
or
endearing
label
of
typical of conspicuous street figures in
pimply debt
collector labelled
'Knopies'
Campbell and a deaf Afrikaner rag-and-bone man known cruelly
as 'Ore' du Toit.
In
the
predominantly
Albertus, and
who.ran
Jewish
area
Buitenkant streets,
around
there was
Harrington,
'Jood Brood',
a small corner bakery for many years, opening up at
six every
morning to
white apron
bread rolls.
A man with 'a
which always looked black', a 'high hat' and an
eyepatch, he
over from
sell hot
also produced
toffee apples: 'He used to come
Constitution street
and then he came out when he
saw us and he waved and he shouted "apples I". Then we always
ran to
him and
buried his
we made
eye in
shout "sell
a ring
one of
us your
and danced.
They said
he
the apples. So we always used to
Jood".' 33
eye today,
Hanover
Street
contained 'a fat Jew, a man with reddish hair ... Ou Rooikop
Jood'. His
captured
'very cheap watermelon konfyt' and 'such polony'
the
pockets
and
palates
of
children
and
his
Russian-Jewish origin their popular imagination: 'Ou Rooikop
couldn't talk
from the
docks, they
outside with
all in
proper English and when sailors would come up
them and
their own
listen. They
dance, and
Rooikop was
were Russians, like him, he would sit
they would
language and
were Just
talk, talk, talk. It was
people would stand there to
so excited.
Sometimes, they
would
everybody would go congregate around them ... Ou
nice, man I
He would
and throw out black liquorice.' 3 ^
get a big brown paper bag
20
The evolution of galleries of popularly nicknamed characters
formed an integral part of the popular culture of the street
and represented
the early
one of
1920s, there
Chinaman who
His
there
Tetlip', an
'hare lip
was an
'Oogies
always
much
attracted
later,
gaping
old Joke
a
one-eyed
tickets from
a
the upper end of Hanover
and
Indian woman 'who ran
was a
Chingy',
6d fan-fee
Three decades
was
enduring continuities. In
pumphouse at
presence
bantering crowd.
Street,
was
illegally peddled
waterlogged basement
Street.
its most
an
inquisitive,
around
Springfield
hooting
a corner
at
'Notjie
cafe and whose
woman's tit, that's how it looked ... that
there for
many years.'35 Such open public
fascination, with human curiosities reflects something of the
uniquely freakish
life. It
the burly
and open
quality
testifies to
amusement made
nicknamed
betting or
immediate,
community
character of relations in streets
content
no allowance
individuals
felt,
the diversity of the district and to
and boisterous
spaces. The
of
and
for
involved
other exchange
expression
the
in
of
sensitive.
shopkeeplng,
popular
But
for
hawking,
activities, the crowd attraction
of physical abnormality could have a positive side. Being an
object
of
popular
humiliating, but
red hair
keeping a
or an
ridicule
may
have
been
hurtful
and
It often aided earnings; the visibility of
eyepatch was
invaluable in building up and
neighbourhood network
of 'regulars',
helping to
transmute onlookers into customers.
Rituals of
name-calling also
and tensions.
reflected social
Direct encounters
animosities
across the double barriers
21
of
class
and
respectability
produced
mocking
laughter,
sometimes light-hearted but often curling into derision. For
instance, the
some petty
Six but
sobriety, discipline
and reforming
bourgeois professionals
who worked
zeal
of
in District
lived elsewheres, did not necessarily earn them the
respect and
deference of
1940s, the
headmaster of
School, 'it
In
the
1930s-
Albertus Street Methodist Primary
was a school for the poor ... we called it "die
stywe skooltjle";
patronising and
was not
poorer children.
was a
Mr Joshua,
a man
authoritarian manner.
popular ..
he was
who affected
In the
a
locality 'he
not of our kind. He was full of
himself because he lived in Walmer Estate. "Black Sea Point"
as we
used to
call it.
Mr Joshua
used to say, "Ek is die
Hoof van die Albertus Street Primere Skool", but people used
to say
that if
must Just
he was In charge of "die stye skooltjle" he
be a
and children
ou "stye" principalt He had very long ears,
used to
run behind
him
and
shout
"donkie,
donkie".' 36
The streets
of District
grounds for
a variety
Six provided
of bizarre
and
a range
of stamping
bewildering
street
entertainers. Whether settled or often nomadic, like Raphael
Samuel's showmen
'comers and
goers' of Victorian London, 3 7
eccentric and odd individuals were readily accepted into the
rough-and-tumble libertarian
mode of
life of
the district
and made part, of the community. People would gather to stare
at
the
antics
of
professional
fit-throwers
and
bogus
epileptics who tried to scrape a living off the sympathy and
charity of
visiting outside professionals like midwives and
public health
visitors. The
more inventive of these casual
22
drifters .would fake elaborate Injuries or gory wounds, their
capacity for
variation a
eyed children.
In the
'Pox Hendrik'
who (some
and whose
who tapped
for example, there was
made Just like a magician with
Later, there was 'Stokkies' Jacobs
the utreets
wars: 'Now
of awe for wide-
said) came from the Knysna forests
new thing'.
score of
then it
early 1920s,
afflictions 'were
always some
of a
constant source
for many years as an amputee victim
grisly industrial
accidents and
both world
he was a real stalwart ... now it would be a arm
would be
a leg.
We would
tell him if there was a
real status person coming/ Especially if they were in a real
status
symbol
car,
like
a
Daimler,
that
time.
Then
afterwards we would shout, "luck today, Stokkies?*' 38
Conspicuous beggars, chance performers and those Involved in
the perambulating
draughts, domino
in the
circuits of
and gaming displays kept a casual foothold
social economy
Finding a
organ-grinding and kerbstona
and cultural
world of District Six.
place in the underllfe of the area, they lived in
the precarious
gulf between
the settled
working class
of
District Six and propertied and professional Cape Town. Such
street entertainers
sharp-eyed community
the displaced
And while
the spectacle
strangers.
which offered
but an
arena for
local residents
street guile
turned upon
were accepted with glee by a lively and
not only a sanctuary to
their cunning and talents.
were not themselves duped by the
of performing wanderers, they clearly relished
of guick
the purses
wits and
of middle
even faster
hands
being
class visitors and other
•
23
Self-generated
entertainment
and
excitement
was
another
integral dimension of popular street life. The more bold and
energetic would
squirt water
over
passing
cart
drivers,
hitch rides on the backs of wagons, collect fish scales from
the Hanover
Street fishmarket and scatter them over hapless
wedding processions
There
were
also
bravado: 'During
come up
and pinch
quite
'spec' fruit
spectacular
acts
from
of
barrows.
adolescent
summer we used to wait for the ice cart to
Hanover Street
on Saturday
mornings. When it came
close, we jumped on the back and climbed underneath. We used
to hang
on there,
down on
us. It
as water
was cold
would run off the ice and drip
and delicious.
I remember on one
time I had a knife and I chipped off big pieces of ice which
people picked
up and
households could
spectacle, as
called it
rubbed on
make a
Eccentric
conscious contribution
to
street
in the example of one which had 'a bantam, we
"Coocooks" -
trained him
their faces.' 3 9
so nice
it had black and white feathers. We
... a
knock at the door and he'd run,
run from the yard, like a dog. You'd open the door and there
was children,
waiting for him. And man, he'd fly out and he
would chase the whole lot right down the street ... children
had fun with that little cock.' 4 0
Strange lifestyles
among the
class
or
outlandish
most celebrated
neighbourhood
behaviour
and joyous
experience.
The
were
clearly
features of
working
activities
of
some
'entertainers' magnified the positive, communal, features of
working class
life; one
vivid example
can be
drawn
from
Bligh Street in the 1930s In the shape of "Mrs Perrins ... a
spiritualist.' A
'white woman' whose 'hair was dyed flaming
24
red', Mra
Parrina was a widow whose Income was derived from
'one
two
or
houses
clalrvoyancy service
know anything
which
for 'if
they would
visionary powers
skeleton there
let.'
She
provided
a
anybody in the area wanted to'
go to her.' Ruaour attributed her
to reported
in the
she
sightings
that
'she
had
a
cupboard.' As 'most of the people in
the area grew up with her', there was friendship and a sense
of common
identity and Interest between Mrs Perrins and her
clients: she
charge for
used to
kept an
open house
her services.
sort of
go
and was
known
Her clairvoyance,
into", a
trance',
never
in which
attracted
to
'she
so
nany
goggling and shoving neighbours that 'it was like going into
a scrum
to get into there.' Typically, the staple needs net
by Mrs Perrins revolved around the troubles; Misfortunes and
grief of
families. Thus,
'when ay uncle was missing and my
auntie went to her - and she said they will find his body on
the rocks
because he drowned hisself. Which wan quite true.
They found
his body
washing went
on the
rocks. And
when
my
mother's
missing she went to her first, and she told my
mother too, you'll find your things.' 41
As
the
historian
improvised public
Keith
Thomas
has
noted,
laughter
at
amusement is at its most forceful when it
springs from a common sense of paradox and from contests and.
meanings which
ideas.
42
It
involve anomalies or conflicts of values and
may
thereby
reflect
popular
perceptions
of
strange and surprising incongruities in social structure and
the
organisation
expression of
something of
of
class
Inversions of
the
grainy
relations.
the
social
Popular
'natural'
fabric
and
cultural
order
brash
reveals,
class
25
incoherence which
existed in parts of District Six society.
Between the wars, amongst the mostly destitute cave-dwelling
'bergies' of
the Woodstock
caves on
the lower
slopes
of
Table Mountain
could be
and flamboyant
men and women* Their entry into District Six
life was
through its
them with
a flash
remember one
snakes with
popular street culture which provided
identity:
- she
had a
a snake
woman walked
found a scattering of freethinking
'Some
looked
white man
and he
very
nice,
I
used to catch
stick. His name was Harry. And if this
down that road - you would never say she comes
out of a cave. She used to work and she used to come out all
dressed up.
hat and
She was very well dressed ... with gloves and a
everything on.
She was a Standard Bight teacher. A
better class person ... I don't know what made her stay like
that. But
she preferred
living in
a cave
with Harry
the
snake catcher. He used to come down, past our road, with all
those snakes
on his
back -
in a bag. He used to touch the
things you know, and they can wriggle.' 4 3
Music in District Six occupied an important place In popular
social life.
The area
band, dancing
enjoyed particularly
and choral
traditions which
well-developed
had
their
own
distinct province of expression and meaning. Music was not a
minority leisure
experience, and
the .relationship
between
popular music and popular culture was striking. For the area
had, at virtually every level, an extremely vigorous popular
musical culture
modernity.
which represented
a compound of custom and
26
It
was,
for
together to
not
an
example,
make music
Inward,
make our
One family
ourselves,
so well
own music
and
people
to
group
own hones; this was often
but
one
which
was
to foster street loyalties
'had a
bring
but we'd
... Hy
for
activity,
shared, helping
and solidarities.
couldn't play
in their
exclusive
neighbourly and
could sing
commonplace
little old piano - we
other
children
in.
He
go ting tong ting and Just
uncle could
neighbours -
we were like one big family ... They had a lot
of children.
There were l'ots of them there and ma and oupa,
organ -
around.'** In
she couldn't
play but
and
the
next
my
sing, and
all come
sing
so
auntie could
they would
I would
play piano
door
another, 'granny had an
my mother
could play
some
hymns and so on. He would put It on the stoep on Sundays and
our neighbours
would coma.
At that
time it was all mixed,
you know, whites and coloureds all lived In the same street/
sort of
was my
neighbours, and going Into one another's houses. It
mother they
beautiful voice
Church
and
I
came out to appreciate. Hy mother had a
- she
also
sang in
sang
in
the choir In St Augustine's
that
choir. '**•
There
were
instances when the arrival of a brass tramping band or choir
would spur
a local
performance. One
'German people
singing bird
into giving
an Impromptu
popular family brass band was comprised of
and very fat. He would follow them down Mulr
Street. People would bring out chairs to sit on the pavement
and listen.
stand at
Sometimes my uncle, he was in a choir, he would
his gate
wonderful voice.'
46
and sing out to this band. He had such a
27
Those who
worked In
period enjoyed
and
cinema in
an opportunity
repertoire.
different class
Working
earlier
and
adults
backgrounds had
lionised by
In their
own right. One gifted, self-taught
in the
from
very
the chance
of
local audiences as popular performers
Instrumentaliat
taxi driver called Tommy Thomas, who 'was the pianist
Empire Bioscope ... he was Coloured and he played by
ear, didn't
he saw
movie
new music or even of enjoying the thrill
of being
was a
silent
to extend their capabilities
children
and ethnic
making pleasurable
the
have any
the film,
music, just had an ear for music, and
it was
a classic
or sad,
or
something
stupid with Laurel and Hardy, he had to play sort of ragtime
music'
A
contrasting
performances of
recalls that
quick turn
experience
two educated
'when soldiers
to the
is
provided
Jewish children,
by
the
one of whom
came along you played a march,
march, then my sister would turn it to a
march, then we came to a cowboy film, turn to a cowboy film,
we had
it all marked ... its amazing that we put that music
together because
together, we
all this.
we were
never taught
to put
that
music
only learnt classics ... Suddenly we had to do
But we did it, it was absolutely amazing ... from
our classics,
musicians,
our Haydn
reading
and our Schubert and the different
their
music
we
learnt
to
put
this
together ... we were only about eleven or twelve. 4 7
Evenings and
venues in
afternoons were also whiled away at commercial
Cape Town
singers. Cabaret
which
at the
Delmonico's provided
staged
orchestras,
Tivoli and
intimacy of
Palm
Court
atmosphere
for
bands
bands
and
at
courting
couples. Attendance at opera and at classical music concerts
28
In
the
City
Hall
was
'respectable' working
one
of
the
snail
pleasures
of
class U f a . The provision of low seat
prices, and their stability across the lnterwar decades, did
much to
extend audience
potential>
'On
ay
father's
old
gramophone I remember the. spring used to break and a new one
cost 7/6d.
7/6d. It
And you should know how hard it Is to collect up
takes weeks. But there was always money for him to
go to the opera, it was cheap.'*8
Nhat is
striking is that in households in which there was a
continuous tradition of attendance at live music venues, the
taste for 'high' musical culture coexisted with more popular
strains. Here
bound or
entertainment was
class-specific: 'My
granny were
bands at
fond of
the Tivoli,
just on
the opposite
sometimes It
in the
Opera. I
Saturday
additional
of the
ay mother
and my
would go to listen to the
side. Every
They ware
very
a jasa
weekend they
band
at
the
would
Tivoli
go,
on
a
and then the night they would go to sit
for
attraction
afternoon games
class-
Rlebeeck Street.
used to
afternoon
as being
I can remember that. And the Opera was
would be
Saturday afternoon,
father and
music, they
Delmonlco's, in
fond of
not seen
go
to
many
was
Opera
years.'*'
the
by encroaching
the
chance
As
to
myself
a
every
child,
pursue
an
Sunday
upon the recreational space
rich 'there on the lawns at the Mount Nelson Hotel',
before strolling
'De Waal's
through the
Park to
listen to
Mostly military bands.'
50
Gardens area
the band
of Cape Town to
during the summer.
29
Street choral
music and the Xmas and New Year band movement
naturally had
a close
and often
direct
association
with
organised religion, and perhaps best epitomised the theme of
what the
social history of leisure defines as 'rational' or
'improving' popular
recreation. Under
the rubric of social
control, a popular musical culture related to church, chapel
or
mosque
can
be
seen
religious, respectful
If the
labour of
sweatshops provided
controls, here
harmonising
aiding
men
the
formation
of
a
and dutiful working class population.
industrial wage
workshops and
as
local
factories,
its own
small
disciplines and
was a complementary form of male leisure for
and
boys:
beneficent,
healthy,
well-
structured, and in a different moral league from the popular
revelry and
fiesta dlsorderliness of the coon carnival. The
crisply-flannelled artisanry
the
Sweetheart
Maids,
of Cape
the
Red
Malay Choirs
Roses
and
such as
the
Royal
Coronations could generate enormous levels of commitment and
enthusiasm. The
clothing needs
of their leisure activities
brought seasonal prosperity for tailors and gave groups such
as the
Malay Tailors'
making of
Association a
special role
in
the
recreational life in the community. By the 1940s-
1950s these
choirs had
also come to enjoy the patronage of
Stellenbosch Dniversity
Afrikaner academics with cloudy and
obsessive
pseudo-anthropological
Asiatics; some
of them
interests
adjudicated choir
in
singing
competitions and
helped to mould the folk song repertoire. 51
It could
therefore be
institutions, subject
argued that
street choir
and
band
to the purposeful interpenetration of
religion and patronage, can be seen as an expression of some
30
form of
social control.
Yet there la also a sense in which
they were undeniably independent working-class institutions,
worker-organised and worker-led; their strength and depth of
popularity lay
in the
mass support
they received from the
District Six
community: 'I tell you, when we were little we
would follow
them to wherever they went ... we would try to
get -near
to them
and walk with them. They sang close up to
us, when we were on the pavement there ... I wanted to touch
those.smart
red blazers
something really
radio. They
us.'
52
beautiful.
was here,
What
this
organised popular
social control
and their
They
they was
suggests
is
street music
or as
white tackles.'They was
wasn't
our
that
faraway
choirs,
instead
as either
on
the
singing
for
of
viewing
an expression of
class expression, the reality is that
it was perhaps both.
Seaside recreation was naturally firmly rooted in custom and
day-tripper outings were a staple leisure activity. For much
of this
period, general civic tolerance of noisier and more
flamboyant bathers
about resort
bye-laws.
Sea Point
enabled shrieking
excursionists to lark
streets, piers and promenades free of bullying
Cheap and
easy access by tram put Camps Bay and
within reach, while days could also be idled away
at more distant resorts like Mulzenberg. And Woodstock Beach
put the water mark only minutes aways 'We would walk down to
Woodstock Beach,
straight down
from Bckard Street, and the
children used
to turn somersaults all the way down. We'd go
with
and
buckets
morning, and
spades
stay there
and
everything,
the whole
day.'
53
early
in
the
For the poorent
families, seaside leisure was often bound up with scavenging
31
for food.
For instance,
'on a
Sunday
you'd
go
down
to
Woodstock Beach, behind the market there, to go play down on
the beach
there ...
they used
to trek
a lot of fish down
there ...
as little boys we used to help the fishermen with
trek nets, help them pulling the nets in. And we used to get
a lot of fish from these guys. My mother used to lay that in
brine.' 54 Hours
Street pier,
would also
fishing
crayfish pieces
used to
the
discarded from
on the
jetty
or
old
Adderley
scrounging
boat catches:
for
'A lot of us
go down together, when we were about seven or eight
years old.
tie them
There were
lots of
together with
could be boiled.
On the
from
be spent
shell pieces piled up. We'd
string and carry them home, so they
>5S
other side
of communal
leisure practice there were
the men who worked a fifty-five hour week on the docks or in
factories
and
then
regimentation in
found
release
loving companionship
tiny, postage-stamp
from
with
backyards. Rabbits,
pets
pigeons,
workplace
kept
in
canaries
and budgerigars enveloped their lives, as in the case of the
stevedore who
hok and
maintained birds
every night
straight to
came from
work, he
a
would go
them. He had made it so big, like it was a room
and he
would climb
... he
was so
down and
when he
'in such big cages, like
into it
fond of
come and
They loved him.'56
those birds
sit there,
shoulders, everywhere
and sit there and talk to them
... they would all fly
on him.
they could,
On the head, on the
just like they knew him.
32
If the
life
popular cultural
had
a
central
preaervatlon and
without doubt
conduit
clear
practice! the
adornments
for
sale
of
boomed,
tailors
It
was
as
material
worked
was
formed the ritual
leisure
clothing
It
Demonstrating the
recreational year.
of
production,
consciousness,
custom, it
example
District Sin
their
Coon Carnival.
continuity of
the popular
particularly
idioms of
transmission into
the annual
resilience and
climax of
forma and
also
a
a
productive
and
associated
flat
out,
and
In
expenditure on food and drink people celebrated to tha limit
of their
means, and beyortd that if they could. For carnival
time 'we
always saved a little every month. But we saved it
to spend
it, and
the shops in Hanover Street were open for
us, man, many of them for twenty-four hours.'57
Carnival was
a potent
community identity,
affirmation and celebration of local
in which
the working
expressed itself
through uninhibited
indulgence.
brought
It
procession and
musical
not
an opportunity
skills
and
high
pleasure-seeking
only
colourful
for the
Jinks
class population
in
and
costumed
display of dancing,
the
street,
but
a
concentrated expression of family and neighbourhood Identity
through conviviality
aloof from
the New
and hospitality.
the spontaneity
Year carnival
Neighbours who stood
and demonstrative
atmosphere
were
behaviour of
sneerlngly
dubbed
'Kenilworth Coloureds' or accused of 'being white' or 'mensa
wat hulle
wit hou'. 5 8
common local
Clearly, in embodying the image of a
humanity and
a common
culture, carnival also
tested the limits of class harmony and intermingling.
33
District Six
place of
had a
deserved long-standing
rough, independent
irksome petty
and robust
restrictions on
reputation as a
character, free of
boisterous public
enjoyment
and open-air amusements. The traditional annual spree of the
coon carnival,
be
hinted
whose many
at
here,
emphatically.
Its
vigorously alive
celebrated it
and complex ingredients can only
demonstrated
ebullient
in the
in its
that
festivity
collective
peak years.
memory
identity
most
remains
most
of
those
who
On the first of January,
'die eerste Nuwejaar', with a massive local audience swelled
with visiting crowds, 'you'd find a hub of people in Hanover
Street. You
the way
couldn't even
people were
procession circuit
along 'daai
to
secure
find a
place to walk, you know,
milling around.'
Pavements along
the
were in a state of perpetual bustle, and
hele route' spectators camping and sleeping out
a
favourable
viewing
spot
were
'gepak
soos
sardiens'.
Costumes changed
Elke jaar
cloaked in
every year, 'die colours change elke jaar.
different outfits.' And the choice of plumage was
secrecy until
carnival day,
for 'die een troep
mag nie weet wat die ander troep gaan dra nie ... dit was 'n
bale groot secret*. Participation in troupes was open to men
of widely
varying backgrounds.
both 'die
meer respectable
criminals like
the Globe
Thus, Coon
mense'
Gang, 'die
as
well
membership drew
as
notorious
Globe Gang, hulle het
ook *n Coons gehad. Hulle was die Pennsylvanian Darkies. Die
Pennsylvanian Darkies
die
trophies.'
Their
het elke
most
Jaar clean sweep gemaak met
celebrated
drum-major.
Tommy
34
Julies, sported
' 'n
tamaai groot
Globe op sy kop, gemaak
soos 'n globe'.59
One
remarkably
immediate
and
imaginative
recreation
of
festivity at this tine draws on a full range of experiences,
ideas and
carnival
relationships which
in
immersion in
folk
popular
consciousness.
the spontaneity
enthusiasms,
structured
frea
the
What
meaning
counted
of
waei
of street life and its porous
of
killjoys
and
external
interference:
'We had a lot of pleasure, nan. Now tonight, it's Old
Year's Eve, then my auntie would make all ready, food
and everything, then she would send me down, me and
Mabel my friend. She would say we Bust go down and keep
our places. Then we would sit on the shop steps. All
the shops in Hanover Street were right next to one
another. Then when my auntie got everything finish,
they would come down, with baskets and blankets so that
we could stay the whole night there. We didn't sleep
hey, because the place is alive. The whole Hanover
Street is alive. The people would laugh and make Jokes
and so it went on. But in the early hours of tha
morning then we children fell asleep, because we can't
keep our eyes open any more, that's why they bring
blankets and things for us. And food was brought, and
we would buy drinks by the cafes, so they would naka
good money. They stayed open the whole night. Things
was different then, man, I'm speaking about over forty
years ago when the United Party was still in. Now it
comes to midnight. And the midnight teams cone out. The
Malay Choirs they were the first to come down. They
showed off their grey clothes and the music was
beautiful. And we would clap each team - there was a
lot of teams. And then, later in the day, the Coons
come up. They must come up by Hanover Street ... And ooohl - when they cone up Hanover Street! I thought it
was too small that street for the people ... The Coons
come marching through - some on stilts, and some were
Redskins, they were dancing and prancing. And they also
rode horses, just like the old days. Some of them were
bareback also. And painted so that they were like real
Indians - they had feathers in. And they run with
tomahawks, and they did their dances. And the Coons
come each with their own name. And each was differently
dressed, and the MUSIC and the people would dance on
the streets. Just like a Mardi Gras, like they have
overseas, just like that ... There was not a policeman
in sight - and the people would be happy. That..was the
grandest time of our lives - the New Year. All year ve
looked forward to that day.' 6 0
35
The experience
of schooling
did little
class recreational
behaviour. Organised
play could
held inside
lack of
not be
adequate space
-breaks, was
tarmac or
to reform
working
games or
informal
most schoolgrounds
and facilitiesi
through
the result, during
that pupils swarmed out to reclaim their common
snatch of
turf, creating
their own unstructured
play space for games and fun. Many 'Just used the roads as a
playground, soccer,
play.' 61 At
one primary
century, 'at
to the
rugby, cricket,
11 o'clock
park, Trafalgar
until the
school in
whatever we
wanted to
the early years of this
we used to break and we used to go
Park. We
used to
play in the park
bell would ring. Then, one day, we wore aprons to
school, not gyms ... And we went to the park and it was also
spring, it was lovely with dew. And we'd take our aprons off
for when the wind blows, and sail down the hill.' 6 2
But there
were also supervised activities which were hugely
popular. Pupil
concerts provided
fantasy and pleasure. The
showpiece of
Junior schools, they were staged once or twice
annually for
parents and
and ill-endowed
pageants, and
church congregations. Overcrowded
schools lacked halls in which to host these
concerts were
held at hired venues: 'We once
had it in the Williams Street Bioscope, in that hall. And we
had it
in Fosters
filled to
Hall in
Woodstock. 'Even these would be
capacity for a two-night run. Entertainments were
very special
events, keenly
budgeted for
for many weeks. At the Lutheran General School
in Searle
Street, in
anticipated, and
the years
prepared and
Immediately preceding
the
36
First DorId War, 'they were lovely ... they u««d to have the
crinkle paper
Hay Pole,
and our
dresses were
made of that. I was In
I was a Chinese girl. And I was a dairymaid girl,
with a little cap. Then we had the milkmaid girls - they had
to have
a little
round bench,
a little
chair,
and
your
bucket. You asust try and milk a cow - that was very nice. If
you were a fairy you had a crinkle paper frock and bare feet
and little wings.'
Great care
nemorable
was lavished on children for these colourful and
occasions.
granted by
special
Financial
sacrifice
was
taken
for
labouring households which often had to stump up
clothes
and
half-a-crown
or
sore
which
the
headmaster, a German named Mansky, levied on parents towards
concert costs. Families who projected themselves through the
appearance
of
their
'special occasion'
the means
to pay
'they never
cash. It
sashes,
always said,
would
clothing items
mind what
pants, red
children
whatever.
purchase
on credit If they lacked
was important
it cost
"if there's
willingly
- If
They
a concert
not to stint and
we had
never
to get
white
grumbled,
you must
they
take part in
it."63
Already at
to see
the
this early
life-cycle stage it becomes possible
Inhabitants
of
District
81s
inheriting
and
reproducing a customary kind of popular leisure of their own
making. It
also becomes
roots
that
of
cultural
identifiable locale
overcrowding which
and
possible to
glimpse the
experience,
inadequate
drove play
grounded
housing.
into the
For
material
in
an
it
was
street, 'we didn't
37
have games in the house, we made our own games.' Territorial
pressure meant
there was
'that we
were too
occupied in
the houses,
nowhere to hide. To enjoy ourselfs we would go to
the street.' 64
Like adults,
The few
children sought
accessible local
And their
sense of
active and
to preserve their own realms.
parks were regarded as their own.
leisure 'freedom'
ever-conscious awareness
contained
of
an
living
ever-
under
the
reality of external white concession or white enclosure. The
relationship
between
leisure
relationship between
we could
leisure and
class
was
also
a
race: 'He had a nice park
play in. The name was Greenhaven. It's up there by
Roeland Street.
park. He'd
He named
go to
European people
brutalities
Nationalist
back to
bemused
recreational areas
their own:
apartheid
the streets
at
being
they had
'they even
another girl
and that
was
our
ever chased us away.' The newly prohibitory
of
and
it ourselves,
that park and we'd play in that park - no
children scuttling
shocked
and
after
of
hounded
1948
sent
District
Six,
out
of
outside
traditionally appropriated
as
marked the benches! There was me and
and we just flopped down on the bench and
...God, those
people. It
Hotnots, look
you where you sit, STAAN OP, STAAN OPI I just
ran. It
wasn't far
Street and
was all
boere.
GET
UP,
ooo
bladdy
from our home ... I just ran up Darling
I go home. Apartheid - we just got to know that.
"Hey - weet jy, watch waarom jy speell"' 6 5
For the
District Six
culturally defined
population, an
way of
awareness of living a
life outside
and below dominant
38
and elite
society was
There is
of the
a natter of distancing and security.
special historical
force In the' reflection of one
fictional characters
in Rive's
Buckingham
Palace,
that 'it's
only in the District that I feel safe'. 6 6 For it
was within
the shell
to snuggle
into a
for the
broadly 'corporate' class culture which,
bulk of the community, had B O M Internal coherence.
The construction
was a
of the District that people felt able
of that
crucial element
world, with
popular leisure,
in a
defensive
on their terns,
local
world.
That
its creative, and 'free' popular cultural nexus,
was one very largely impervious to bland rational recreation
and the reform of manners.
The life
with
of District
poor
housing,
uneaployment and
also
imbued
at
its
once
heritage and
low
pay,
popular
life
reaffirmed
and
its
and
But
and
seasonal
that
community
practices
peculiarly
Invested
tolerance and
llbertarlanlsm to
South Africa,
with the
Group Areas
cyclical
with
the
of the locality. It did so In a manner
identity,
black Johannesburg
was oppressive and hard,
chronic instability.
indigenous resources
which
Sis workers
It
be found
possible singular
suburb of
obliteration in
with
cosmopolitan
a
rolling
nowhere else
in
exception of the
Sophlatown, until that area's
the
1950s. 6 '
In
this
sense
popular cultural life in District Sis may be regarded as the
maintenance of a separate identity, an urban subculture as a
response to
And of
an overwhelmingly
particular Importance
diffusion of
subordinate social position.
to it was the penetration and
the bonds and ties of 'community' as expressed
through the recreational hub of cinema or street carnival.
39
With
self-awareness
traditions whereby
and let
of
community
went
the
reality
of
groups and classes in District Sis lived
live. In relationships and differences within their
community they
knew that
there were boundaries which could
not be crossed: 'Our neighbours opposite were the Carelses',
nice people. They had a Rover car. When my father was out of
work once,
he washed
mother took
in Mrs
hand ...
We all
together, but
it for
them for
ten months
and
my
Carelse's washing. They could give us a
used to
go to the Circus and to the Coons
we always
walked down
and met them there. I
think they didn't want our barefeet in their nice c a r . ' 6 8
While the
could
District Six
fuse
community held
creativity
independence, morality
and
and a
together, while
hard-headed
ideals
it
of
shared way of life, there was
relatively little to challenge what Gareth Stedman Jones has
termed in
another context a chosen 'culture of consolation'
in the teeth of subordination. 69 That culture of consolation
was rooted
in the
Unemployment,
material
low
employment bred
and
a local
realities
irregular
of
economic
earnings
and
life.
casual
labour process with a recreational
life which was by habit and instinct a mercurial grabbing of
experience or
opportunity, with
bewilderingly
picaresque.
municipality of
the
over
Against
it,
which
capital
was
from
often
the
Cape Town did not come flooding in to endow
thirty
neighbourhood
a style
thousand
with
their
Inhabitants
own
of
this
recreational
run-down
grounds,
libraries, sfortsfields or swimming baths. Yet, plainly put,
one cannot
but be left to wonder how any civic merchants of
40
leisure could
have competed
with the
lure of the realm of
Harry the snake catcher.
REFERENCES
Oral evidence presented here la drawn from the collection of
District Six life histories currently being collected by the
Western Cape Oral History Project' in the Department of
History at the University of Cape Town. The recordings and
transcripts are to be preserved as an archive. Host of the
respondents quoted in the text were born before 1920, and
the oldest in 1901. In order to preserve oral history
conventions of
confidentiality. Informants must remain
anonymous. Names have been altered here and there, but the
quotations are otherwise literal transcriptions, except for
the elimination of some hesitations and repetitions.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
"
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
Mrs O.D., b.1913. Factory worker.
Mrs B.K., b.1912. Home seamstress.
Mrs Z.A., b.1906. Daughter of cinema owner.
Mr 8.B., b.1919. Mechanic.
.
Mrs Z.A.
Mrs E.W. b.1918. Washerwoman.
Mr B.S., b.1919. Market stallholder.
Sbld,
Ibid.
Mrs E.W.
Mr S.C., b.1930. Teacher.
Mrs Z.A.
ibifl.
Mr B.C.
Mrs V.A., b.1917. Factory worker.
Mrs B.K.
Mrs B.W.
Mrs B.J., b. 1916. Domestic worker.
Mrs V.A.
Mr 8.C.
R. Rosenaweig, Bight hours for what we wllli Workers
and leisure
in an
industrial
city.
1870-1920
(Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp.217-18. Sea
also, J. Richards, The Age of the Dream Palacet Cinema
and Society in Britain. 1930-1939 (Routledge, London,
1984), p.24.
Mr. I.W., b. 1918. Transport driver.
R. Rive,
Buckingham Palace. District Sin (David
Philip, Cape Town, 1986), p.8.
Mrs Z.A.
G. Crosslck,
'The Petite Bourgeoisie in NineteenthCentury Britain', in P. Thane and A. Sutcllffe (eds.),
Essays in Social History. Vol. 2 (Oxford University
Press, 1986), p. 178.
Mrs Z.A.
Mrs J.J., b. 1917, Factory worker."
Mrs A.Z.
41
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
Mr U.S., b.1915. Carpenter.
J. White, 'Campbell Bunk, a Lumpen Community in London
between the Wars', History Workshop Journal. 8, 1979,
p.25.
Mr W.S., b.1920. Stevedore.
Mrs E.W.
Mrs N.O., b.1906. Stallholder.
Mrs R.D., b.1911. Hatmaker.
Mr S.C..
Ibid.
R. Samuel, 'Comers and Goers', in H.J. Dyos and H.
Wolff
(eds . ) ,
The Victorian
City:
Images
and
Realities. Vol.1 (Routledge, London, 1973), p.123.
Mr S.C.
Mr S.A., b.1920. Plumber.
Mrs G.A., b.1920. Domestic worker.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Mrs G.D.
Mrs A.A. b.1916. Factory worker.
Mrs N.O.
Ibid.
Mrs Z.A.
Mrs G.A.
Mrs H.S., b.1903. Factory box maker.
Mrs N.O.
Special thanks 90 to Mr Shamiel Jepple for providing
me with information on the topic of District Six
choirs.
Mr S.D., b.1910. Fruit hawker.
Mrs V.B., b.1918. Daughter of meat porter.
Mr C.W., b.1915. Print worker.
Mr S.A.
Mrs V.B.
Mr S.A.
Mrs R.D.; Mr I.W.
Mr D.M., b.1922. Labourer.
Mrs F.M., b.1901. Shop worker.
Mr D.M.
Mrs H.S.
Ibid.
Mrs A.A.
Mrs G.J., b.1937. Domestic worker.
Rive, op clt.. p.67.
See A. Proctor, 'Class Struggle, Segregation and the
City: A History of Sophiatown, 1905-1940', in B.
Bozaoli (ed.). Labour. Townships and Protest: Studies
in the Social History of the Wltwatersrand
(Ravan,
Johannesburg, 1979), pp. 49-89; D.M. Hart and G.H.
Pirle,
'The
Sight
and
Soul
of
Sophiatown',
Geographical Review. 74 (1) 1984, pp.38-47.
Mrs R.L., b.1928. Factory worker.
G.S. Jones, 'Working Class Culture and Working Class
Politics in London, 1870-1900: Notes on the Remaking
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