i remember in my time in omund the teenage craze was to have youre own pondok,hope ive spelt it correctly,a big shed outside youre house!as my dad was the apprentice instructor ,he got all the appies to lay the cables for the electric,mr bennett ,the crane driver promptly deivered it ,it was my 12th birthday present,it ment i had my own space away from the rest of the house and on weekends you get get upto all sorts of nonsense with youre mates and mom and dad were non the wiser,most of the kids my age either had one or got one,
ya those pondocks were legendry.....i got up yo many a trick in there
does anyone remember Benny Wilson. He was an older man who used to live next door to us in 16th Ave. He had a bar in his pondock and wall to wall pictures of naked women - I think he thought he was a teenager.
I too remember my pondockie at 20/2. It was painted, carpeted and had a couple of "easy" chairs and all the other paraphernalia that was required to make it home from home. It was also handy because, if you climbed the fence and walked across the top of the ponockie you could reach the solitary tree in our garden and "spy" on the "world" going by.
Claire, I remember Benny Wilson very well - i was very good friends with Gary, Jackie & Paula and spent a lot of time at their place. I think they arrived in town when we were in std 3 which would've make it 1975 - then they lived in 8th avenue in the east section of town. I don't really remember their place in 16th avenue - not sure when they moved there - but yah that sounds just like Benny. He was known as Oranjemund's oldest teenager - used to come to all the jols at the log cabin, riding club, etc and party the night away with all the youngsters doing his john travolta (saturday night fever) moves!
Paula is still here, Benny drove all over town in that Messed up yellow Beach buggy. I think he was crazy about guns also!
;D
YES I HAD A BIG ONE WHEN MY FOLKS LIVED E15/8 TH AVENUE I HAD A NICE NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR AS WELL GOT YOU THINKING NOW
I also had a massive pondok, shared it with my brother. Many secrets were shared late into the evening, because your parents were sleeping, so they didn't keep telling you to go to sleep. So, we stayed up until late, talking about the days happenings or giving each other relationship "advice"... teenagers! What I miss the most, was when I had a bad day, my brother would buy a pack of smokes and a massive bar of chocolate, then we would lie on his double bed smoking and eating chocs and talking about whatever bothered us... Really good times.
Now with all the illegals and the way-too-many people who can way-too-easily get clearance, the pondoks are used for them and there families to live in...
Instead of moving into the single quarters, my Dad and I built a great big Pondok at E36-12th Ave in 1975.
The frame came from salvaged 2 x3's, clad with, heaven forbid Asbestos Cement sheeting which we took the time to seal with varnish on the inside.
The interior was divided up into three rooms, One a Dark Room for Dads photography, a Bedroom come den for me and a workshop for the bikes. I think it was the only one to officially have a phone fitted, in 1976.
When working on the SH 400 Bucket Wheel Excavator, I was often called out for breakdowns and initially the calls would go through to my Dads phone in the house. We asked for a phone to be fitted in the pondok and were told this was not in line with company policy.
So Dad refused to take calls which were not for breakdowns on No 4 plant, which was his responsibility at the time. He also refused to get out of bed at 02.00 in the morning and go into the garden to wake me up.
It wasn't a day later that the phone was fitted and my address officially listed as E36-12th Ave _PNDK.
To this day when ever I listen to Zeppelin; Black Sabeth; Hendrix; Dylon; Cream or any music from the late 60s early 70s it reminds me of the Omund pondock days. We have even made up CDs of music of that time and named it "Pondock Hits" Great Times!! 8)
hey richard,i remember the sounds like it was yesterday,hope you got some grand funk railroad on that cd,i would love a copy of it.kay has just given me some old pics of the inside of my pondock,i will post them soon,take care
Considering the number of Pondocks scattered around town, where did they all come from? What were they used for?
???
Hi Bobby,
Please see subject "Grand Funk Railroad" - I was disconnected before I could send my reply.
Cheers
Richard
Michael, I think and I stand under correction here but as a child growing up during the years before open town, there was constant reclaiming of materials that would otherwise be left to be buried in the sand. Everyone knew someone who could.
Pondocks were build as glorified garden sheds, workshops, dens.
As can probably still be observed from differant materials depending on who knew whom and where the materials came from. Remember no materials could be brought in.
Houses become sought after according to outhouse structures, bamboo roofed braai areas, electrified workshops, teenage dens.
We had two pondocks one with no windows and a low roof in eglish standards a shed, for potting and storing lawn mower etc, we as kids used as a play room. It was carpeteted.
The other was more larney, windows and electicity, where my dad tumbled stones and the plan I believe as he was not a handy man (white collar office pen pusher) was that it would be his den. We were a house of girls and would never have been trusted to sleep out there.
We did attempt to commendeer it and I remember having a old gramaphone out there for a couple of years.
Aunty Martha had a brick and cement structure build (72/5) it may still be there, which she used as a room to perform massage therapy out of hours from her job as sister in the hospital. I believe this was with special compensation by the authorities.
When we got here in 72, our neighbour was a chap called Norvil Gilbey, he worked somewhere at security, had a son called lionel, anyhow, in their garden they had 3 pondoks all bunched together, one had no windows , the one was also used for stone tumbling, and I think one was a workshopWe used to should pellet guns in the garden with Lionel.... he was a lot older than us, anyhow when they left, the pondoks went ....
Our pondok, was a nice place, ceiling boards, mirror and power.....
:D
Lionel was in my class.
you just mite be rite barbara,kay is of the opinion that a lot of the materials came from rumbelows discarded materials,as sandy mentioned in one of his replys,their yard was near the paint/carpenters yard,we used it as a shortcut from school,we used to go to the yard to get wood to make our swords and shields to fight the boere,i ,and a few others were hauld up in assembly one monday morning by doc.fenter,because he found out that the third boer war kicked off at the quarry.michael langford was our leader,lione trollop was in charge of the boers,let it be said,no real harm came to any one of us,but as kids,we were determined in mind that it was war,naughty little shits we certainly were,going back to pondoks babara,i remember gathering the agates and tiger eyes for youre dad to polish,he put them in a drum with paste and slowly turned them for days,remember also getting them out and washing them,how they shone,amazing,who was the person that set all those stones in rings and broaches,ive still got one of those stones.
Bobby,
I need Help with this reply. Give me a few days, to sleep on it or seek consultation. I think you are right and there was a jewel maker of sorts amongst the old timers.
It was hell sleeping with the tumbler tumbling outside the bedroom window as I remember, it would require days of processing -
Hey Barbara, I seem to recall Gerald Hodgson used to tumble stones and maybe even make jewellery from them. I think there were quite a few people over the years that had a go at this. You have also jogged my memory on Lionel Gilbey. I can specifically recall them packing up their house and preparing to leave. Can't remember where they went to though.
I got my first Pondok when we moved to 76 - 2 ND AVE. It was every teenagers dream to have their own bit of privacy and space. Mine was originally built by Samma Schreuder when he had occupied the house. It was of breeze block construction ( just as well, as the constant loud music emanating from it would have blown it apart ), and had two sets of windows and a partition that separated the bed from the " lounge". I can remember I had it done out with posters, carpet, disco lights, chairs, desk, TV, and a " you beaut stereo system". I remember one occasion when the bracket supporting the speaker had become loose due to the vibrations from all the noise, and both came crashing down to earth. I apologise to all ex neighbours that might be reading this.LOL. The best part about it was that you could get home in the wee hours of the morning, and your folks would be none the wiser. Needless to say, a lot of "sleep overs" occurred. If only those walls could talk ........
Did any of you know that the Indonesians also call a shed or outhouse detached from the main house a Pondok? Is this perhaps where it stems from? They also call a banana a Pisang, (Like Piesang in Afrikaans). Must have been the Dutch influence.
Now that's a memory I have recovered, Thats right The carpenter shop by the mine store had that cement hokkie, where you could scavange all the off cuts, and there was some good pices to be found there at times...
The Boer Wars were awesome, in first avenue where the water "tower" pipe was used to fill up the water trucks, there was an awesome supply of clay to be found, so Clay lats where used in our warfare...hell... that stuff stung like crazy.....we also used the leftocer braai ash from the weekends braai, placed in a cheap plastic bag and then hurled over the fence at the dutchmen, made quite an impact, dust everywhere, I do remember at once stage, we had to take brooms and sweep the entire e section of 1st avenue, due to it looking like an alpine snow village.......
To this day, I'm still not sure who won those Boer wars.... ::)
I think the answer would be differant depending on who answered it.
It was one of those things that just happened and I think eventually we all became mutually respectful and civil to one another and left the war tactics to the younger generation. Like a rite of passage to being a teenager.
Did'nt one of the prominent foremen in town get fired because he had built a super pondock with company materials????
Leon