Which Decade was the best to be living in Oranjemund!

[Michael Alexander]

Which Decade was the best to be living in Oranjemund!

[SandyB]

Huh ,,,, they were all good ...   still enjoying ...  excepting the chinese " may you live in interesting times " moments ...

[Andrew Darné]

Have to be 80's for me... that's the eraliest I knew this place, and things don't seem greater than then; but that may just be that we percieve things as we get older.
From listening to the tales of earlier residents (pre 80's) my judgement is that the better years were definitley around the 60's and 70's.
But whichever decade was the greatest for you, may there be more great decades to record in the history of Oranjemund...
Long live our oasis... Vive Oranjemund!

[Patricia Lotte]

Definately the 70's ... left for boarding school in the 80's so wasn't around enough to enjoy Oranjemund then.

[mavis(smith)]

     Hello1 Hello1:   The best was 1953 to 1972 

[toonfandangl]

           We were there in the sixties and seventies !!! ..................

                                Its a wonder that Oranjemund survived   

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

Absolutely Mavis but I'll push your date out to 1979

[Michael Alexander]

I reckon that the 60's and 70's had more of those crazy but unique characters that made the town, by the 80's .... they had started to leave.....

[Mike Voden (RIP)]

I'm sure that each decade had it's good times as well as the not so good times and we all remember the times we were there. So for me it was from the early eighties but as Mike A says below, the earlier days had some unique characters, also those that were there in the earlier years were starting to leave in the early eighties. Staff used to stay for many years then, not like recent times when people only work at O'mund for a few years and then move on..........

[Paul (Pepe) Freemantle]

Most definately the 60-70's best time of my life!! :-)

[Bertie Horak]

In the 60's I was a bit small to remember everything, but the memories I have of those first few years were wonderful. The 70's of course for me was the best - my OPS days and the greatest time of my life! 

[Alfred Boehme]

mmmmm the 20's but I wasn't there o-no

[Bob Molloy]

NIE, NIE, DIE FIFTIES BO

I think I would have to vote for the Fifties. That's when all the nutcases arrived, myself among them, and immediately began forming clubs such as the Players, Squash, Tennis, Brownies, Guides, Scouts, Moths, and later Golf, Yachting, Masonic Lodge, Photographic Society and many others. Also in later years major fund raisers such as the Mule Derby.
Out of that period came the Oranjemund Silver Band, nationally recognised as a superb musical group, as well as almost nightly entertainment such as Bingo, Whist, variety concerts and weekly dances in the Rec Club. This resulted in a move to enlarge the Rec Club, then a small and rather tatty building, a call for a new cinema, another pub (Caseys) and a community centre for the children's groups.   
They did so in a cacophony of accents that ranged from the Highlands of bonnie Scotland to the hills of Wales, the Bow Bells of London, the depths of Cornwall and the coal pits of the Midlands, not forgetting darkest Belfast.
All were highly skilled artisans, the process of a very meticulous selection process in London where they were individually vetted. The mortality rate was high, about one in fifteen applicants got through. They were imported as a form of indentured labour (stay two years or pay back the costs of your passage) and thereby seen by management as a docile work force.
That was a big mistake.
From Day One they began hucking for improvements in working conditions which in those days were abysmal (transport to work was in open back trucks for example, no eating or washing facilities at the workshops, long drops - i.e. a deep hole in the sand with a plank over it - in place of toilets and no worker/management direct contact. They also demanded, and were given, a monthly meeting with management to discuss these issues.
The arrived at a time when the mining hierarchy ensured that all the perks such as fridges, electric stoves and even compost for gardens went only to top senior staff. They took those issues on almost immediately and in a matter of months everybody had fridges, could get rid of their messy paraffin stoves and the newly formed garden clubs ensured proper distribution of compost and manure from Beauvallon Farm for all.
Workshops quickly acquired adequate eating and washing facilities, toilet blocks suddenly became possible, trucks were first fitted with canvas covering and later swopped for standard buses or mini-buses in the case of small work groups.
A long fought campaign also gave everybody a telephone and the company was also forced to bring in few Morris Minors and run a cheap car hire system that allowed those who wished to pay for the privilege run their own vehicle within the confines of the town and the Yacht and Golf clubs.
General Manager Stan Devlin once described them as "a culture shock" for Oranjemund and "a kick up the for management". At his retirement dinner he recalled those words and added: "In retrospect, that was an understatement, they were a hurricane of change."
Stan of course loved every minute of it and was pleased to push aside senior management stuffiness at every opportunity.

Beste,
Bob.

[SandyB]

Interesting input there Bob  and yes  so true ,,, as you put  it my Dad  was one  of those stirrers ....

[toonfandangl]

Hello to you Bob! I think I must have been in Oranjemund about your time I was there  69-71 you mentioned the General manager Stan Develin I do remember a Welsh family and I think he was in management but do not know their names..................any clues........