Eileen Laurenson (nee Cassidy), Fish Hoek
My mother’s family stayed in a house called Glen Lily in the 1920s.
It was near to where the present police station is. My father came out with the Royal Navy and not my mother.
I have a photograph of them on the bench in old fashioned striped bathing suits.
We moved to Claremont after they were married but my aunt always lived in Fish Hoek so we visited a lot. There were sand dunes opposite the railway station and the Main Road consisted of the post office, AP Jones, (greengrocer), CNA, The Butcher, The Nutshell and Kews Stones. Opposite was the Green Parrot, then Wakefords Garage and across the road Linley’s Chemist (later Westbrooks).
Down near the beach was Noekkis Cafe, or the Greek Shop, where one could listen to the juke box, buy comics and have a “special” – a soft drink with ice cream – or have a tutti frutti – ice cream made by the Premeticares family.
(It was) a wonderful meeting place for young people in the 1950s. We came back to Fish
Hoek in 1953 and lived on
Hillside Road. Most school children went to schools up the line by train.
Does anyone remember the day when a bull ran amok on Fish Hoek Beach? It must have been about 1953.
The poor creature had escaped from the station en route to be slaughtered.
It ran down Beach Road, across the railway line, and onto the beach. It then headed towards the Catwalk. It proceeded onto the prom and people sitting on the benches scrambled up to where the railway lines are, in great fright.
The bull then ran past the second subway onto the big flat rock and into the sea. It swam towards the beach and across the railway crossing again. It continued running down Recreation Road where it was shot (by the police I think).
Other memories are of teenage dances in the Recreation Hall on a Saturday night (it might have been called the Scout Hall). Also going up the sand dunes at night an climbing the mountain and crawling through the Kalk Bay Caves. There were different “gangs” of young people, according to your age. What a wonderful
place to grow up, best of all –
there were no sharks, we used to swim far out between Shelly Rock to the beach. Thanks to the Echo for bringing back all these memories.
