Happily Travel Back To An Exciting Time Of Life
Step back into an era of trolleybus overhead lines, trains were most used mode of transport to get anywhere when I was fifteen years old in 1970.
School travel meant I commuted by train after walking to the station each day about 1 km (.62 mile) downhill in the morning return in the heat of the day uphill, not a problem, we walked most places to get shops, movies, or discotheques at local town halls. School was 2/3 Afrikaans only 1/3 English speaking learners, some subjects number of pupils factored in, taught in whichever medium was larger, a small Commercial High School of around 100 students.
During my early working years SYND 25-1-73 CONCORDE 002 ARRIVES IN JOHANNESBURG testing high altitude flight, thought the windows were going to nudge out of the frames with this booming affect going over the offices. Seeing progress first hand into supersonic speed in craft was exciting everyone spilled out the offices to witness.
City was changing as were the people at the time, visiting coffee houses in Johannesburg after commuting by train, walked to Flea Market mingling with everyone. Music stores to listen to the latest releases in vinyl or walked through Diagonal Street which is where the Tribal Vendors sold interesting herbs, shells, potions, or variety of artifacts our Bantu used in medicinal healing.
Up The City - A Film by Alan Michael Levy: Johannesburg 1970 - 1971
Johannesburg in the 1970s
In 1974 I traveled with my Mother and Sister to explore Britain, Scandinavia and Europe our first tour out the country, Mom and I should have gone as little sister suffers with travel sickness, literally sick most of the time being on Aircraft, Trains, Coach Tours she was green on the channel crossing!
Started writing to my husband during his army training, being conscripted one had no say in the matter, which led onto our marrying in 1976, traveling overseas once again in 1978 which I have shared previously here on Hive.
All the time remembering we never had cellphones, growing up you learned to go alone getting things done, tell the person when you met once again, or write!
Music with live bands at the Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg City Hall or an evening at the Planetarium with music to watch the stars.
Technology was slowly appearing with bookkeeping being the first I noticed sending documents to computers where the system ran through "ticker tapes" to convert into documents, telegram messages upgraded to fax messaging, typists were on golf ball electronic typing machines.
Much happened during the 1970's it was a time when if we missed out on restaurants we caught up in these years when working, going out became easier with a few friends owning their first motor cars, normally a VW Beetle. Owning your first stereo record player, taking your parents out... Oh that I do remember Star Wars in 1977 when the movie first got to our city, we took my parents for a "treat", they were mortified we were intrigued!
End of the 1970's we decided to move to the coast, Johannesburg was growing, yearning for a quieter tiny little house by the sea we moved, cutting our salaries by a whopping half, then slowly started building up once again.
Hope you enjoyed going down the years, memories of live ballet, full orchestra at Johannesburg Civic Theatre, when we afforded a vehicle to go into the city spruced up dressed to the nines, a night out on the town.
Communicating via snail mail, hoping the person read it before you got back home, postal service was good back then. Red phone boxes much like in the United Kingdom for calling if you never had a phone at home, our closest was on the railway station when growing up, however we did get a phone in the home with a lock to stop pesky teenagers abusing the system....
Looking at the positive is always way more enjoyable than the negatives, there was plenty happening in our country in the 1970's which I will always keep close, many were hurt during these days, fighting the 'system', hopefully tomorrow is better for all.
Keeping the positive in mind I would travel back to this at my age if time had stood still, in all honesty I would not go into Johannesburg today even if you paid me!
More suggestions offered by @galenkp for #WeekendExperiences
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Thought for Today: "Life is lived in time. Therefore he who wastes time, wastes life." - African Proverb
Glad to learn that you experienced that time and time was revolving back in that time. Things were changing.
A time when young and excited to explore everything.
Sad some friends fell onto the other side of the colour law here, unable to have what we enjoyed. When with them I felt guilty, a sell-out when sharing something knowing the circumstance of living here.
Sometimes it's so nice to remember the past, to remember the youth. And compare how it was before and how it is now. It seems that technological progress improves life, but on the other hand, there are also disadvantages. In the courtyard I see how parents bring schoolchildren in cars, and as a child I myself got to school, by bus or on foot. We walked a lot, getting to know different parts of the city, and now the schoolchildren are all stuck on their phones and can’t see anything beyond their own noses.
We walked, cycled miles with friends, caught busses or trains without any problem, this lifestyle is really no more! Change in technology was swift, changing everyones way of life. Planning outings around certain TV shows remembering we only got those square boxes in the 1970's, everyone became glued to stupid shows like Dallas eating away your life on a couch.....
In the first 4 years my school was only a minute away ... passing two neighbor houses and I was there 😀
All 4 classes with about 20 kids in one room, the older ones taught the youngsters while the teacher taught the 2nd and the 3rd class. Our teacher's father was my father's teacher. It was awesome and during these 4 years I somehow loved going to school ... that changed later 🤣
You're right, looking back it's always better to see the positive things. I don't remember many of the bad things that happened in my youth, but a lot of positive ones 😉
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Primary school was a lot of fun, also not too far to walk, uphill in the morning and downhill in the afternoon only 5 minutes to home!
Positive keeps us going if we think of everything negative it starts to rub off and make you feel grumpy 🙃
!LUV
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And after primary school fun was over 🤣 !LOLZ
I always try to think positive, but I have noticed that when I wake up at night thinking of a problem, its not easy to think positive, while during the day it's not even a problem 🤔🙄
Wishing you a happy day 🌞
Have a !PIZZA from me, served with !LUV
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Too many changes far too quickly everywhere. Glad my days of waking in the middle of the night are behind me, although I still do not sleep as much as most.
!LUV from wet, cooler Durban today.
!PIZZA to share later with the wife.
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Here it's dry and hot, but almost every day we get a storm warning, and some places have had golf ball sized hail stones.
Hihi, how did you know that we have had !PIZZA yesterday 😁
Hope you're having a nice cool day 😊
Sending !LOLZ and !LUV
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Bosses should only arrive when they need to be seen, otherwise mostly get in the way !LOLZ
We had massive rains with flooding once again, many places not yet fixed from previous flooding now in worse condition that they originally were as well... Tornado hit up the road in a very poor region, tin roofing ripped up into the sky, the poor really never win here.
!PIZZA comes floating through the home every so often, I used to make homemade but husband gave my recipe book away...
Very sunny bright day, comfortable 24C sending !LUV and greetings!
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Sometimes I need my bosses to make decisions, but most times I don't need them, you're right 😁 !LOLZ
Hearing about the problems you have when it rains too much always makes me worry and sad.
Every now and then we make a !PIZZA at home - no real recipe needed, just a few ingredients and mushrooms, I love Champignons, and some spices 😀
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I now live in constant fear.
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We just watched the Netflix series, The Americans (which was phenomenal btw) and season one was set in the early 80's. After watching this so many memories came flooding back -- the cars, the culture, how we communicated, the music, and just how incredibly different everything was.
I miss a lot from the "old days" but what I miss most is how people made time for each other and actually paid attention. Everyone's attention is so fractured now. I think in today's society few people truly feel heard or value the deep human connection that we all took for granted back then.
We have our memories though. I'm so happy I had the luck of being born in the early 70's we've seen a lot of change in our lifetimes haven't we?
Change in my lifetime has been phenomenal, some good, some crazy, nonetheless change will continue, we learn to adapt as we go. Linger on memories of what once was, spending time actually delving into debates and chatting is something we did a lot of with friends, I still have that with my sons.
My only regret is our country never accomplished what was planned taking a turn for the worst over ten years ago, politics/greed is a nasty disease, eating up much of the world sadly.