The back of the school!

[Michael Alexander]

I poked my camera over the fence at the back of the school and snapped the following, people it has changed a lot, where there was a tennis court, (where we used to play red rover!), is now grassed over......

[Michael Alexander]

..and the undercover parking on the west side of the school... without the gemsbok....

[georg ruf jr.]

I remember the tennis court well. Had a high fence around it. The ölsaubschers, Mark Swanepoel ect were the soccer stars in the big break.
The "new" tennis court used to be the place girls would play netball. In breaks some of us would sometimes spin our tops there.

[Michael Alexander]

That tennis court had a wire mesh fence around it and a wooden fence along the base, I think there were two gates and a cement wall (still in photo)  on the one side.... we used to play stingers and red rover in there.... the marbles were played down by the art room side.....

[georg ruf jr.]

I remember the marble playing to. Guys like Steven Brownless would put up about 20 or 30 at a time, so you'd have to take 20 or 30 steps away. All kids would go bezerk through their marbles. At a hit everbody would scrum for the marbles.
hahaha

[Michael Alexander]

Chinese Checker
Goonie
Tigers Eye
......

anymore names?

[georg ruf jr.]

Chinese checkers were worth 2 or 3 marbles, depending on what they looked like.

[Michael Alexander]

... almost forgot... twiceys...... and remember those guys with the gates, with the different numbers ontop, you got the arlie through, you got that number of marbles back.....

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

I think i may have posted this before but anyway. John Macabe "Spiderman" used to spend breaks climbing all around those nets, sometimes old Margie would give chase while we all stood around cheering them on.       

[SandyB]

Yes  spiderman .. not  a  well  child  was  he ..  and  he  and  Margie  did  not  get  on .. sworn  enemies   always  looking  for  a  way to  get  at  each  other .. ... 
I  can  tell  this  story  now   as  Mom  and  dad  are not  around ...  . he  one  day  scratched  around in  our  house  and  found  my  Moms   .22  revolver ...    it  was  me  and  Richard Wrethman   who  tried  to  get it  off him  as  he  was walking  around  brandishing it  like  it was  a toy  gun ...   the  story ended up  in  a  shootout .. him  hiding in  the  alley  and  taking  pots  at  us  .. other  kids  of  the area  not  taking much  notice  thinking  it  was  a  rather  cool   and  very  noisy cap  gun  he  must  have had ..  the reality  for  us was a few  shots  narrowly  missing  us ..  he relinquished  the gun  when  he ran out of  bullets ...  as  spiderman was  persona  non  grata  in  our home  and  we    had let  him  in  it  would  have  meant  trouble  for  me  so  we  just  kept  dead  quiet  hoping the  story of  the  rather  cool  cap  gun did  not  get  around ....

[Delia]

"Roll up, roll up, 2 man shy, nix anything"...........when i think marble season at OPS, that echoes in my head.  Remember when someone would scramble their arlies - a few jokers thought it a good time to do that when we were all lined up in the quad at the end of break knowing that there were some that wouldn't be able to resist breaking rank for marbles - they would do it just before the teachers arrived just to check the chaos erupt..........

[Michael Alexander]

....and how many a poor sod would forfeit all his marbles to a teacher, when during class, his marbles would somehow escape from his pocket and with a clattering scatter themselves about the classroom floor.....

:36_2_24:

[Delia]

not surprised with that 'cos i remember a lot of ultra bulging pockets full of arlies. didn't happen in any of our classes that i can remember but had a good giggle at the thought of it. don't know about OPS now days, but that doesn't seem to be a big thing now days at schools here in cape town, well not at my daughter's school anyway.  in fact i don't hear of any seasons going on here like back in our day ie. top season, yo-yo season, marble season.........maybe it was just us inventive oranjemund kids that kept it going all those years in our isolation from the "real world".......

[Dalene Steenkamp (Coetzee)]

 ::

I still have a small bag with 5 marbles and 1 ghoen in from then.  Promised my brood something like a train crash will happen to them should they dare to take those allas  -  proof of my winnings!   


I remember a game (don't know if I remember the name correctly) skalulu  -  we used to play it between the classrooms - some kid start up in the middle, the others would line up on two sides.  The one in the middle would then roll a tennisball to one of the line-ups, who had to kick it to m*&%#r and then everyone had to run from both sides.  The one in the middle had to pick up the ball, hit someone with it in the chaos and the one that was hit had to join him/her in the middle....   

We also used to do rope jumping and another game with "broekrek" elastic.  Think I might loose my teeth all over again if I should try it now....

[Barbara Eia (Brownless)]

"broekrek" elastic game.. I used to love that. It was called french skipping.