Bramley Primary School

In between 1964 and1972 I went to Bramley Primary School. I played soccer, cricket, ran track, swam and dived, and of course I did gymnastics at the Wanderers Club. In high school I added squash, tennis, fencing, gymnastics, cricket, rugby and field hockey. My life was one sports season to the next. My best friends at that time at school were Martin Hurwitz and Graham Rodin and Eddie Sender, in addition to my neighbor friends Grey Stead and Anthony Glass, and the son of one of my parents friends, Michael Egdis.

On Sports Day at Bramley, we assembled in our House (think of Harry Potter) and the House I was assigned to was Roan  – we were the red house. My dad was always present at the school. Here he is dealing with the trophy’s on sports day. A friend recently told me that he still remembers my dad at the school. You can see me as a 6 or 7 year old in these two pic, I am leaning forward in the first one, And walking with a Housemate on the field.

I loved sports day. It was so much fun

We used to fly kites in the afternoons at the school, go swimming and diving at the Kingfisher Pool around the corner, play soccer on the play field and play Gaining Grounds (a rugby ball kicking game), and ride races on our bikes when we weren’t playing organized sport. We also played tons of board games, monopoly especially, and we had a Spirograph that I loved playing with. We did puzzles and played cards. The main card game we played was Clubby Ace (more on that later). It was a complicated game that emulated the Bridge that my parents played. We also read books and magazines and listened to the radio. There was no TV to distract us. We had to use our imaginations.

My dad had a Dry Cleaning Facory called Swift Dry Cleaning downtown, and it was always a treat to go to the factory. Mom worked in her rooms (what clinics were called in South Africa). What I remember about visiting her practice “Hosey and Chasan” that was  her partner, Francis Hosey.  She was always very nice to me and although I never knew her well, she did have the most amazing collection of matchbooks in her house. They had a bar that they had stapled literally hundreds of match books floor to ceiling on every vertical surface. Anyhow,  the elevators in my moms building had mirrored walls and they were just out of alignment enough so that you could see thousands of iterations of yourself. I used to ride up and down in the elevator to stare at that. The dentist I used to see was also in that building…as well as the dried fruit place.

One time when Derrick was home from high school before he went off to college, I took a one Rand note (a dollar) I found on the desk in our room (he was asleep) and went after school to the corner cafe, where I became the yo-yo champion, to buy soccer cards.

I used to collect soccer player cards.   They came 3 to a lucky packet which cost 3 cents each. I spent about 66 cents and purchased all the lucky packets they had. My little suitcase was filled with cards and gum!

I had a stack of cards and came home feeling a little guilty. I “hid” the change around the back of the house and hid the cards in the Wendy House. Rebecca, the maid found me out back and took me by the hand dragging me inside. She spanked me with my mom on the phone yelling “hit him again” over and over.

By the end of the night, Rebecca, Derrick, my mom and dad had all spanked and beat and whipped me. It was the most severe beating I recall receiving as a kid. Literally hours of getting beat by multiple people. I spent a lot of time under my bed the next few days. My safe place.

At school we played this game where we would stand 20 feet or so away from a wall and have to flick the card to the wall. Whoever was closer, would keep both cards. I got really good at flicking cards so eventually nobody would play me. And I had a fat pile of soccer cards. I was a big fan of Powerlines at that time. They were a great side with a Brazilian midfielder named Santoro who was tricky as hell. My love affair with Powerlines lasted till high school when we got season tickets to Highlands Park.

Coke, Fanta and Sprite made branded yo-yo’s and the store would have these Brazilian guys, who were ridiculously good, run yo-yo competitions outside the café. I was often the winner, I could do all the basic tricks and do loop-the-loop over 200x. The prizes varied. Usually it was yo-yo strings, or vouchers for a soda, or even a new yo-yo, which I wanted badly because my yo-yo was always so beaten up.

I spent hours and hours playing with the yo-yo. I picked one up recently and could still do many tricks! I’ve still got it! LOL

(This guy is who I always imagined I was…I could do some of what he does but he is insane

But in reality, this guy is demonstrating the tricks I did.

One of my pure joys from that era of my life was to go to the professional soccer matches. My uncle Anthony was the radio commentator of Highlands Park, and I used to go to the games with John, and we would get to sit in the commentary box. Often at half time, John and I would go down to the dressing room and ask the players to sign our cards, and we often got lucky. My strongest memory for some reason, is the side Addington FC, a team from Durban that wore white like Leeds.

My auntie Stephanie was involved in show jumping, and I spent many an afternoon with John and Mandy at the show jumping events. We used to search for horseshoes and play throwing games with those. I loved going to those events…the horses were magnificent and I still enjoy watching show jumping having been so close to it as a kid. Sadly I discovered I was allergic to horses and so I was never able to ride much.

I did have a tendency to get “up to no good” as my mom would say. For example, When I was 9, I was playing a game with a friend in my room pretending something or other and I had climbed on top of the cupboard – about 6 or 10 feet tall – Sandy, my dog, got excited about me being up there and put her paws up against the cupboard with all her force causing the cupboard to rock back and forth. Well I lost my balance and fell to the stone floor breaking my left wrist one more time.

My mom, bless her, heart, heard the screaming, came running and assessed the situation the conversation went

Mom: (screaming) “What are you doing?”

Me: (bawling my eyes out) “I fell off the cupboard”

Mom (spanking me) “What were you doing on the cupboard?” (Spank)

Me: (sobbing) “I think I broke my arm” (holds arm up)

Mom: (spank) “serves you right, get in the car” (to my friend next) “Go home!”

Another 6 weeks in a cast.