Home Life in Old Milnerton
In the early 1960s, we woke to a clinking sound as 'natives' delivered milk in glass bottles with foil caps and an inch of cream at the top. The milkmen rode bicycles with large baskets in front. Every evening, Mom placed that day's empties on the front stoep with the correct number of coins for the next day's delivery. The coins were never stolen, but a few years later, we had to purchase plastic disks and the milkmen started driving an electric van with a distinctive hum. If we were lucky, we could cadge a ride to the next street. The back of the van stank of sour milk.
The tuneless bray of a fish horn announced the approach of the Malay fishmonger and his boys on their donkey cart. Wet hessian sacking covered fresh snoek and stock fish (hake). I'm the proud owner of an original fish horn, fashioned from a paraffin tin.
We children were entrusted with buying the vegetables Mom needed from an Indian greengrocer, who parked his tarpaulin-covered truck outside our house and filled Mom's basket with the items on her list. We'd have to help her shell the peas. There were no frozen veggies back then.
No vendor's approach was more eagerly anticipated, however, than that of the ice-cream 'boy', who rang his bell as he did his rounds. His bicycle had a cooler box fitted above the small front wheel, and we'd stand on tiptoe to peer into its treasure-laden interior. If we were really lucky, he'd give us a small piece of 'smoking' dried ice, which seemed to burn our fingers like hot coals. We couldn't afford anything more expensive than iced lollies, but they were all we wanted on those hot summer's days.
Monday was wash day, but there was no washing machine. Our live-in 'maid', who had a room at the back of our house, helped Mom with the back-breaking work of soaping the laundry over the bathtub. After wringing out the washing by hand, they'd feed it through a hand-operated mangle set up in the kitchen. Then they'd hang it on the line in our back garden, using a long plank as a prop to lift the line above head height. The ironing was done later in the week.
Our 'maid' used a Ewbank to clean the carpets and used a mop on the linoleum floors in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. The front stoep was polished russet red with Cobra wax. Mom did the cooking and Dad did the washing up - by hand, of course, because dishwashers had yet to be invented.
Wallpaper was all the rage in the early Sixties. Mom mixed the paste of flour and water while Dad cut the sheets to the correct lengths. Then they'd apply the paste and hang each sheet one after the other. It was a messy business as a sheet would sometimes pull away from the wall and roll itself up again.
My parents couldn't afford new furniture, so they attended auctions at Marcus Salesroom in Long Street, where they'd decide in advance which lots to bid for and agree on the maximum price they were prepared to pay. In this way, they acquired some quality furniture at bargain prices.
Mom also enjoyed her weekly bus trips into town, where she'd go to Spracklen's Wednesday sales in Plein Street. Here she bought curtaining and flowery Sanderson linen, from which she made matching detachable covers for our living room suite, using her trusty Singer sewing machine.
Dad made bedside tables from old peach boxes. They had drawers which stuck when we tried to open them, but they looked attractive, covered in decorative sheets of Contact paper. Our kitchen door faced on to a bland garage wall, so Dad made it more attractive by painting a mural of horses on a green hill.
During school holidays, my friends and I could leave home after breakfast and not return until dusk without our parents having to worry about us at all. Even after supper, we'd be playing outside until we heard the Peter Stuyvesant advertisement wafting from some neighbour's wireless. Then we'd dash home so as not to miss that day's episode of Mark Saxon and Sergei on Springbok Radio.
And what games did we play? War-war in the foundation trenches of new houses, shooting one another with our spud guns; holding snail races in the street, hoping that the odd car driving past wouldn't crush our favourite before it crossed the finishing line; go-cart racing in our home-made soapbox cart, with a friend stationed at the stop street to wave us through if no cars were approaching; dark-dark inside our house, with all the lights switched off and one of our number holding the card of the secret murderer; crock-cars made of bits of junk in our back garden; dressing up in whatever odd bits of adult clothing we could find; Q-bikes, with cigar boxes fitted to our handlebars as radios and playing cards pegged to our rear wheels to sound like motorbikes; all-day cricket Tests in the local park, with both teams packed with Pollocks; bicycle races with Stan Amos and Johnny Cawcutt mounted on Sea Cottage and Jollify; hopscotch with chalk blocks drawn on the road; and, as 'Guy Fox' night approached, we'd be spies planting bombs of lady crackers and big bangs in our neighbours' letter boxes. We also carried our fibreglass Indian canoe down to the lagoon and paddled to islets, where my brother and I hunted for birds' eggs while our sisters played with their paper dolls. We were also lucky to be invited to make use of various families' swimming pools, and then there was, of course, the beach. To be honest, there was never a dull moment. It was an idyllic childhood, and our parents did the best they could with the little they had.
Children today may have more materially, but we were more privileged in the sense that we had so much more freedom and had to use our imaginations to have fun. Milnerton in the Sixties was a wonderful place to be a child!
If you've enjoyed reading this blog, you'll be pleased to know that I'll be writing a new blog on aspects of Milnerton's history every week. These will alternate between personal reminiscences and straight historical articles. Please keep a record of the site: milnertonian.blogspot.com Alternatively, if you haven't yet done so, you may like to join the Facebook group, Milnerton Historical Society.
The tuneless bray of a fish horn announced the approach of the Malay fishmonger and his boys on their donkey cart. Wet hessian sacking covered fresh snoek and stock fish (hake). I'm the proud owner of an original fish horn, fashioned from a paraffin tin.
We children were entrusted with buying the vegetables Mom needed from an Indian greengrocer, who parked his tarpaulin-covered truck outside our house and filled Mom's basket with the items on her list. We'd have to help her shell the peas. There were no frozen veggies back then.
No vendor's approach was more eagerly anticipated, however, than that of the ice-cream 'boy', who rang his bell as he did his rounds. His bicycle had a cooler box fitted above the small front wheel, and we'd stand on tiptoe to peer into its treasure-laden interior. If we were really lucky, he'd give us a small piece of 'smoking' dried ice, which seemed to burn our fingers like hot coals. We couldn't afford anything more expensive than iced lollies, but they were all we wanted on those hot summer's days.
Monday was wash day, but there was no washing machine. Our live-in 'maid', who had a room at the back of our house, helped Mom with the back-breaking work of soaping the laundry over the bathtub. After wringing out the washing by hand, they'd feed it through a hand-operated mangle set up in the kitchen. Then they'd hang it on the line in our back garden, using a long plank as a prop to lift the line above head height. The ironing was done later in the week.
Our 'maid' used a Ewbank to clean the carpets and used a mop on the linoleum floors in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. The front stoep was polished russet red with Cobra wax. Mom did the cooking and Dad did the washing up - by hand, of course, because dishwashers had yet to be invented.
Wallpaper was all the rage in the early Sixties. Mom mixed the paste of flour and water while Dad cut the sheets to the correct lengths. Then they'd apply the paste and hang each sheet one after the other. It was a messy business as a sheet would sometimes pull away from the wall and roll itself up again.
My parents couldn't afford new furniture, so they attended auctions at Marcus Salesroom in Long Street, where they'd decide in advance which lots to bid for and agree on the maximum price they were prepared to pay. In this way, they acquired some quality furniture at bargain prices.
Mom also enjoyed her weekly bus trips into town, where she'd go to Spracklen's Wednesday sales in Plein Street. Here she bought curtaining and flowery Sanderson linen, from which she made matching detachable covers for our living room suite, using her trusty Singer sewing machine.
Dad made bedside tables from old peach boxes. They had drawers which stuck when we tried to open them, but they looked attractive, covered in decorative sheets of Contact paper. Our kitchen door faced on to a bland garage wall, so Dad made it more attractive by painting a mural of horses on a green hill.
During school holidays, my friends and I could leave home after breakfast and not return until dusk without our parents having to worry about us at all. Even after supper, we'd be playing outside until we heard the Peter Stuyvesant advertisement wafting from some neighbour's wireless. Then we'd dash home so as not to miss that day's episode of Mark Saxon and Sergei on Springbok Radio.
And what games did we play? War-war in the foundation trenches of new houses, shooting one another with our spud guns; holding snail races in the street, hoping that the odd car driving past wouldn't crush our favourite before it crossed the finishing line; go-cart racing in our home-made soapbox cart, with a friend stationed at the stop street to wave us through if no cars were approaching; dark-dark inside our house, with all the lights switched off and one of our number holding the card of the secret murderer; crock-cars made of bits of junk in our back garden; dressing up in whatever odd bits of adult clothing we could find; Q-bikes, with cigar boxes fitted to our handlebars as radios and playing cards pegged to our rear wheels to sound like motorbikes; all-day cricket Tests in the local park, with both teams packed with Pollocks; bicycle races with Stan Amos and Johnny Cawcutt mounted on Sea Cottage and Jollify; hopscotch with chalk blocks drawn on the road; and, as 'Guy Fox' night approached, we'd be spies planting bombs of lady crackers and big bangs in our neighbours' letter boxes. We also carried our fibreglass Indian canoe down to the lagoon and paddled to islets, where my brother and I hunted for birds' eggs while our sisters played with their paper dolls. We were also lucky to be invited to make use of various families' swimming pools, and then there was, of course, the beach. To be honest, there was never a dull moment. It was an idyllic childhood, and our parents did the best they could with the little they had.
Children today may have more materially, but we were more privileged in the sense that we had so much more freedom and had to use our imaginations to have fun. Milnerton in the Sixties was a wonderful place to be a child!
If you've enjoyed reading this blog, you'll be pleased to know that I'll be writing a new blog on aspects of Milnerton's history every week. These will alternate between personal reminiscences and straight historical articles. Please keep a record of the site: milnertonian.blogspot.com Alternatively, if you haven't yet done so, you may like to join the Facebook group, Milnerton Historical Society.
Thank you for the memories!! I was one of those kids growing up in Milnerton, lived in Vaal Road and later Knysna Road until I got married and moved to Durbanville.
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