It was an off-weekend and Christie Brand and myself were returning from a glorious time in Cape Town the Sunday afternoon. We stopped at Nick's in Port Jolly's who was the first to inform us that the town was open....of course, if you knew Nick, you will know better than to believe everything he tells you...In any event we got to the gate and was promptly waved through past Swartkop garages. Christie's Toyota Corona Mark 11 had only a few kilos on and he was VERY hesitant...we waited untill somebody else passed through and then we followed...all smiles!
At first it was nice...then people started bragging about their different cars, the Pink Pan T junction rerouted a couple of times....but mostly..the town lost some of its mystique. Call outs became at least 30 min longer, buses came in...and some people unexplicably started buying new cars....faaar above their pay grade! Some individuals retired immediately...
I wonder if anyone out there remembers that weekend and what part did you play then...I heard tell of huge planning meetings prior and security patrols etc....
Some people are still buying cars far above their pay grade....
Christie Brandt only retired from here last year or so.... I worked with him for 3months as an Appie at 50G, back in the day, Gus was the foreman!
They are visiting with us tomorrow!! Were my bestman and bridesmaid!
The Appies called him President Brandt, in fact he was in town not to long ago for a visit....
I will never ever forget that day. All us appies got blown out of our minds at Casey's bar that Saturday afternoon. Poor Harry and oom Piet bak oor moer were running off their feet.
I think the town opened the first weekend October 1975 . Friday midnight, and on Saturday morning everthing changed . Everything that was on the west side of the fence remained there . The Company cared for the peoples every need , so it was standard practice that everybody was allowed to take their kitchen appliances , washing macines or bicycles , camera's , wheelbarrows , garden tools etc to the workshops for repairs . But with the sudden closure of the mining area and the workshops , All private goods remained just there . Nothing was allowed out again .
The first person to roar past me early morning in his private car was Dave Hucker , I nearly fell over backwards - Imagine , a private car in town !
I think my dad left it for about 3months to pass before he went to fetch our VW Combi. Said that he had a company/police car to drive in and that was good enough for us. We also continued to use to company furniture untill about a year after the town opened. The only thing that we nagged by dad about to go fetch were the organ and piano. Come to think of it -we used the company dining room table (those ones that you could pull out to extend it) untill they day they moved from OMund.
Of course I remember.
We were in the scout "den" on Friday evening when Charles (Digger) said the town would be opening that weekend. We all went mad. The next day Andrew Morow and I walked to the log-cabin. Quite a few teenagers had gathered to celebrate. In fact the first time I ever went to see the log-cabin.