William john (bill) 1938 - 1962

I was born on 9 Aug 1938,  at  the  Queen  Victoria  Nursing Home, Johannesburg,  roughly a year before Britain declared war on, what was then, Nazi Germany. I  was  christened  in  St Aiden’s  Church, Yeoville  in the  Diocese  of  Johannesburg  by  the  Reverend  Blundell  on  30 December 1938.    My  Godfathers  were  Gordon Dent (paternal uncle)and Bert Rothero (family friend) and my godmother was Edna Masson (maternal aunt).

My earliest memories are much influenced by the War (WW2): people in uniform, living at the coast, blackout curtains, shipping and secrecy, motorcars with slit covers over their headlights and searchlight beams relentlessly criss-crossing the night sky presumably on the lookout for enemy aircraft. Perhaps it’s imagination, but I think my very earliest memory was looking from our stoep in Atlanta Flats (Victoria Road, Bakoven) and seeing large ships passing with smoking funnels and being told that these were carrying soldiers off to the war.

The names I was given were the second names of my paternal and then my maternal grandfathers respectively. 

“William” features quite prominently in the generations of Dents preceding me but it seems that I will be the one to feature as the last in the line. Inevitably William was shortened to “Billy” which, I guess, I simply accepted but by my early teens really did not enjoy. 

I think changing schools helped and I was far happier with the further cropping to just “Bill”.

As the first grandchild – on the Dent side – my arrival apparently was something of an event.  Grandad and Grannie Dent hastened to Johannesburg to greet and maybe forgive my parents for “defecting” from Cape Town. Photographs mandatory!

Frequent visitors were my folks’ friends such as Auntie “B” (Beryl Stuart); Gwen (Wassie) and Dick Dickens, and also a pretty scary character I remember as “Mike” who was bald with a huge handlebar moustache and who, I think, was an airforce type.  

There was a fort higher up Camps Bay Drive that had gun emplacements aimed out to sea, which after the War, was opened up and became, temporarily,  a magical playground for many of us young boys in Camps Bay acting out our fantasies and so on.

My darling sister, Glynn Patricia arrived in late 1944 at the Leeuwendal Nursing Home on Guy Fawkes Day 5th November!  

My Dad never served in the armed services apparently due to having “flat feet”. All my Mother’s brothers did, although I was much later a bit non-plussed with the photo of my maternal uncles all in army uniform except for Wally in Naval uniform – even at the end of the war he could only have been a teenager – perhaps in the sea cadets or something similar?  

Uncle Gordon served in the Sahara desert and Uncle George was reputed to be something of a wireless expert and served at home sorting out special wireless masts and signal systems  (I seem to recall!)

I vividly recall,  in 1945, helping my grandfather (Oupa Barends) stringing out a long length of coloured lights from the pergola on the slope of the front garden at “Montana” in the shape of a large “V” to mark Victory in Europe (VE Day) and the end of the war!

Saturday mornings in summer were decidedly for family pleasure times on the beach and my Dad taught me to swim in a channel near the “Man’s Face” rock suspended from a short length of kelp round my stomach to support me in the water - the sea water at Camps Bay is notoriously freezing cold!  I went to Mrs Lotz’s kindergarten school in Strathmore Road for Sub A and Sub B before going to Camps Bay Primary School. This was located on The Drive and was built from mountain stone and had opened in 1912.  I understand that it is now the local public library.  

Camps Bay seemed no less a haven through the 1940s with the beach and mountain assuming prominence in our little lives. In summer my hair was bleached almost white in the sun, stubbed toes were constant companions. We picked flowers: “pypies” and “afrikanders” up the mountainside – no doubt in springtime - with uncles Wally and Les – how I have since longed to again smell the scent of those beautiful wild flowers!   

A few weeks before each Christmas we would also go up the mountain to cut fir trees for each family home to decorate.  On the negative side, the mountain fires that occasionally raged down the mountain fanned by a howling south-easter, whilst exciting to an extent, were mainly very frightening and we all were involved in firefighting to protect our homes.

We lived what I guess would be a typical village existence with Mr Louw, the vegetable man, Mr Lurie, the grocer, Mrs Forbes, the draper, Mr Isaacs, the chemist, Mr Joffe, the sweet man, and so on.   Mr Isaacs, in particular, became something of an institution: at 91 he was still operating his little chemist shop next to the soccer field where he had been for 60 odd years.

We were under no compulsion from our parents, but regularly attended Sunday School at the Interdenominational Church – however, visits to Lamberts Tearoom afterwards to buy a few pennies worth of sweets seemed to be as, if not more, important.  

The council had planted palm trees at regular intervals on the seaside of Victoria Road - the main road.  As youngsters we could leapfrog over these until eventually they were box-fenced to prevent damage.  Today these very trees stand 15m to 20m tall.  

Occasionally we would be able to ride “Philly“, Roy de Beer’s white horse that roamed freely round grazing at it’s leisure.  He was reputedly given the freedom of Camps Bay and lived to a ripe old age having given much enjoyment to so many, many kids.  

I remember after a severe winter storm, sea water and sand were swept across the main road, shop-fronts were sandbagged and then – great excitement – seeing my first corpse – a body was washed up on the beach just opposite the soccer ground.  Fantastic!  All bloated, blue and pink – horrible really – but a helluva experience for us youngsters.  I cannot recall who it might have been or if there were any criminal or other sinister circumstances but clearly remember a young coloured guy  rushing about shouting over and over:  “Daar’s ‘n lyk op die strand!”.   (There’s a body  on the beach.)

In the late 40s I contracted Scarlet Fever.  I don’t remember feeling particularly sick, but I was hospitalised at the Somerset Hospital – infectious diseases ward - and at visiting times had to look through a small sealed window to peer at my Mom and Dad – no physical contact allowed.  

Recuperation time was spent on the Myburgh’s farm at Muldersvlei – brilliant! – with the Myburgh boys (John and Phillip) riding horses and bullocks, milking cows, picking peas, learning about sheep, wheat etc. Whilst still on the farm, I remember attending the World Ploughing Competition held across the main road (the forerunner of today’s N1 highway) and being presented to the Governor General Brand van Zyl.   

In later years, thinking about the farm and the wonderful time spent there, I was often to think of that less than tasteful story of the visitor – a travelling salesman - to a farm who complained seriously about the dreadful fly problem when visiting the outside toilet.  The farmer’s suggestion was that he visit the loo “at lunchtime, ‘cos that’s when all the flies are in the kitchen!”

Guy Fawkes day, apart from being my sister’s birthday, was something of a celebration and for weeks beforehand most youngsters were involved with building bonfires from material dragged from the mountainside and elsewhere.    I remember my cousin Graham (Barends) having his hand severely burnt on the night when, somehow, his box of fireworks burst into flames.

When First Crescent was tarred and also Geneva Drive, we had great fun with steamroller rides and the like but the writing was on the wall – our quiet little suburb was becoming popular and the “mountain playground in our own backyard” was soon to be gone forever!!

Dad’s first car was a ± 1936 Austin 7 – the sizeable starter button was located between the front bucket seats – I used to get Bobby to sit on the starter button and then put the car, first in forward and then in reverse gear to go up and down the pavement in front of our house – before the garage was built.  Did I run down or damage the battery?  I don’t remember getting a hiding!

I performed reasonably well at primary school, which was co-educational, coming either first or second in class alternating with Pamela Barrett.  In Standard 3 we had a huge school fete and Mom did all the stall and other signs in her “famous” Gothic style calligraphy – she used the same printing on all our school books which were covered in brown paper for protection.  As the community expanded, space at school was at a premium and some of us had to attend class at the Bowling Club hall whilst others were increasingly accommodated in prefabricated classrooms.  

It was usual for the school to provide some form of very basic nourishment at break-time such as milk, cheese, or dried fruit and at one time my Dad arranged with the Principal, Mr Gush, to provide loads of naartjies on the proviso that the skins were retained for his driver to collect later – the skins were used in the distilling of the liqueur Bertrams “Van der Hum”.  

I remember having singing classes under “Wilkie“ JN Wilkinson at the Farquhar Hall – named after Mr J Farquhar regarded by some as the “father” of Camps Bay.  I later learnt that he was responsible for “banning Jews” from living in Camps Bay – little did he know!?!

Prize giving nights were held in the ballroom at the Rotunda Hotel. Our boys’ school uniform (grey shorts and long stockings, white shirt, tie and bottle-green blazer) underwent a major fashion revolution with the introduction in 1949 of “bush jackets” (much later they would be called “safari suits”) and I was selected along with a few of my mates to “model” for a newspaper article (like  me,  Karl also  went went on  to  St  Georges  Grammar  after  leavng  Camps  Bay  Primary)  – an early touch of Americanism was added in that we gave up our ordinary school caps and instead wore a bottle-green baseball cap.  

I played soccer but never cricket as that took up too much time and in summer the beach beckoned!

We lived very much as an extended family -  I suppose because we all lived in such close proximity and family (Barends family, that is) picnics were great occasions (logistically if nothing else!).

Christmas lunches were splendid affairs with “Oupa” officiating at the head of an enormous table. In the days preceding, all the grandchildren were enrolled to de-pip and stalk mountains of raisins, sultanas and currants before these were set on trays in the sun – and that combined effort was just for the mince pies! The huge Christmas  pudding contained, if you had been really good, tickeys and sixpences (sterilised in boiling water, of course) for all!  

On the occasion of Wally’s 21st birthday we were all involved in setting up the garage at the back of “Montana” for the celebration – the older children in particular having to wax the cement floor with candles for dancing.    We were conditioned to correctly address uncles and aunties as such except for Walter and Brian, who I guess, because they were less than a dozen years older than Graham and me, we treated more like older cousins than uncles and who we called “Wally” and “Sparry”.

(Ed: It was around this time that I lost contact with Brian and it was to be just under 55 years before we met up again, both settling with our wives in Helderberg Village, Somerset West – although 20 odd years apart!)

Granny and Oupa had a wind-up gramophone and as we got older we were occasionally allowed to operate said machine.  One record was a favourite – and God help me for not learning a single poem of Shakespeare – the words to one verse we knew by heart.  The artist was Danny Kaye and he related, in a pseudo German/Yiddish voice, the tale of “Villiam T’Hell” whose father shot him “mit a bow und harrow into the happle on his head”.  The verse, which eventually my own daughter Heather could recite, at 2 years old, went:

“ I vish I voz a fairy kveen,

 Und if it came to pass,

 I’d climb up all the rocks and trees,

 And slide down on my ………..  

(pause for effect!)

……..hands and knees!

Tenk you, tenk you, tenk you!”