How did we entertain ourselves?

[Ann Gander (nee Greenway)]

In the 60's there was no TV in OM nor in SA

What you don't have, you don't miss.  We finished school at 12:30 or 1:00, quick lunch, then off out on our bikes.  Return home time was when the hooter was blown by the power station - all so simple.
Our bikes generally took us to the swimming pool but there were so many other exciting things to do - we were never BORED like so many children seem to be today without all their gadgets.  All our childhood was spent out of doors: cycling down the "hill" into the town (is that hill still there - it was the way in from the Airport), cycling through the alleyways from one end of town to the other (no barriers stopping cyclists in those days!), playing Monopoly with friends for endless hours, making popcorn and toffee apples, cooking little balls of bread (water and flour) over a little fire in the garden, the trees, the barneys, the "out of bounds" big park where we all went, Girl Guides and Scouts, collecting the post from the post boxes (No 493), trying on shoes in The Store ... oh there were just not enough hours in the day.  No worried parents because there was no crime and no cars on the road (there were only the odd half dozen used by De Beers staff as required - no-one had a permanent car), everyone knew everyone in a wonderful mixed community which as a child was the norm and we all looked out for each other.  Sorry, too much rambling, you just had to be there.  Go-karts, cafe, Saturday bioscope and on and on and on.

Then there was only Springbok radio too so no luck there.  In the in the afternoons, they had Afrikaans plays -not quite what we called entertainment.  Evening on Springbok was a treat - "Mark Saxon and Serge in Operation ......", the different plots going on over about a 13 week period, and "The Money or the Box".  Really, just too exciting.  And aren't we pioneers all the better for it?  I love Mike calling us pioneers - never really considered us to be that.  But it really was the greatest of times.

[Michele Alexander (Voden)]

Hi Anne, really enjoyed reading your post about being a child in Oranjemund. When we arrived in 1981 there was tv in Oranjemund but come to think of it we only used to watch it of an evening. Afternoons were also always spent playing outside, in the park, amongst the trees and also cycling all over town to play at our friends houses. There wasn't such a thing as sitting at home and playing on a pc. Luckily our girls go to a daycare centre after school where they have a ball of a time playing with their friends in the dollshouses and making up games. I can remember one Saturday when they spent ages having snail races in the garden with a couple of garden snails and the neighbours children! We are still very lucky in that our kids can enjoy playing safely outdoors between the neighbours houses.
The kids grow up differently in O'mund as what they do outside, there they are used to going to shopping malls and games arcades.

[SandyB]

Ann .. Total agreement ...  a  safer  place  ...  radio  .. books   ... they  spurred  the imagination .. listening  to  Mark Saxon  , the  mind  of  Tracy D'Arc ,  Consider  your Verdict  ..   Inspector  Carr investigates   etc etc   ...  as  one listened  the  pictures  formed  in  the  mind  ..  running in  the  desert .. playing in  the parks   ...   safe  roads .. 
Sorry  to  sound  negative  but today  it  is  all  spoonfed  .. TV games .. etc etc  imagination  lacks ...  families  do  not  gather  together  for  meals  anymore   ...  Our  Lodger  had his  younger brother  stay  over  for the   school  holidays ...  This  boy  of  14  did  not seem  to  want  to  join  us  at  table   , but we forced  the  issue   .  found to  horror  that this  young  man  lacked  certain   basic social  skills    he  could  not  hold  a  knife  and fork  properly .. He  was  not  taught  as  his parents  did  not notice .. after  their  long  days  work  they would  throw together  a  meal  and  everybody in  the  house  would  come  and collect  their  food  and  retreat to  their  rooms  , to  continue  with  PC  games etc  ...   only  too  eager   to  not be  bugged  by the  kids thereby leaving them  to  their  own devices  ,  Ouch !

[Michael Alexander]

Friday Night on Springbok Radio, was --- " They Control the streets in their fsat Cars..." these are the men of Squad cars......

Man... those were the days when a radio was a radio........

:(

[Paul Alexander]

And what about the chappie chipmunk show and Pip Friedman and the Super super Shopper Show and Best Sellers... many a night sitting under my sheets listening to my trusty old transistor radio (remember the red one I had Mike?)...

We're so old the radio reception was still in Balck and White!!!!

I remember when TV first came out... the excitement in our house... first, just snow on that old Telefunken... then some snow.. with groot Krokadil wagging his finger... propaganda had arrived

Don't you find it odd, that a 74 cm screen is a luxuary these days but in those days that was pretty much the standard size????

Mike, remember the first time we saw a TV at Bobby Fielders house in Cape Town, we hid behind the couch because we though folks on TV were talking to us????

[Michael Alexander]

Hell yes! and we saw those moving stairs at the golden acre, you know this silver shiney stairs that move between the levels.... and then there was that time travel machine, you press a button on a wall in the mall, and this door opens in the wall, you climb in , press a button , doors close and when it opens again, all the shops have changed to something else..... man that was awesome...

I'ts fun being a country bumpkin!

8)

[Ann Gander (nee Greenway)]

And I forgot - the best radio treat was on Sunday night.  Great if you could smuggle a radio under your bedclothes and listen to LM (Lorenco Marques) radio to the top 20! 

[Andrew Darné]

Bridge the gap for the young ones... LM Radio later became Radio5, now known as 5fm. None of the original DJ's anymore.
Springbok Radio methinks, Sunday evenings... test the team... aish

[Michael Alexander]

SteL YOUR father's matches and make fires in the first avenue bushes was a cool thing to do, it was even cooler if you managed to get the fire truck called out to your informal braai in the bushes...

remember taking the match box, cutting off the side strips, putting the heads into the middle, make a cube and gooi them on the road! Phhhhhwsssssssht!

:o

[Claire Mc Cullagh]

Best thing ever - When someone got a new delivery of Sand for their Garden - was always left outside the fence, we used to take Laurences cars and dig tunnels in it on make roads.  Not realising that the damp patches were cat or dog pee. 

[wendymasterton]

I remember roller skating (on four wheels at the time...they wernt even the ones with the boots !!) down at the Netball courts...as it had the smoothest surface.

also playing marbles in the street lol Great memories

Wendy

[bobbysmith]

please,please,please,delivery of new sand,yes i rember it,getting on youre bike and seeing who can ride over the mound of sand,then youre front wheel getting lodged in the sand heap,you going forward with the jolt,no bloody wonder ive got no kidsjavascript:void(0);
Shocked

[barb (Fry)]

great site, many names that I remember and people I have thought about
was it just me or did anyone else climb onto the roof of the rec club to look in the window during the balls and dances.

All the parents dolled up and the glitterball twinkiling, I was to young to be invited to the teenage dance at the time.
we would run away from Joseph who was suppose to be kidsitting and often saw gemsbok on our way back.
almost peed my pants the first time.
amazingly we all just got used to it ...

[Michael Alexander]

If you are a private person in Omund today, it costs an incredible R50.00 to have a lorry load of sand, otherwise take your bakkie into the quarry and fill up with the stuff, anybody want some?

How much would you pay for a lorryload of sand where you live 2day?

;D

[barb (Fry)]

Never had the need to buy sand but out of acedemic interest I looked it up on google and got a quote,
free delivery to anywhere in the UK, for 1 ton of sharp sand would cost me £89,90. Huh.

I do know a faarm where I can go and fill the boot of my car for free with useful (smelly compost) for which I have more use.