Don't we all wish that we could have our lives over? How carefree life was. I would turn seven in 1954 and memories from that time are clearer. Our house I remember, had a small step from the back door and from there a path led to the back gate. The garden was non-existent. I remember white sand like a beach with no water. I later learned that this part of the Cape Peninsula had been under water at some stage.
Station on the Cape Flats
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Nothing grew very easily except for the Port Jackson shrub which had been brought in from Australia to keep the sand down.
Yours Truly - Young and Mischievous
Our House
I started school this year and I remember the entrance to the school, a waiting area which led to the principal’s office and along corridor. We were very well looked after, watermelon in summer, cups of cocoa in winter and bags of peanuts and raisins being handed out on occasion. We lived a very sheltered life and at that age I was unaware of what was going on around me.
J.G. Strijdom
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I was a thin, bony child and would take off my shoes and socks and walk home bare foot whenever I could.
In South Africa D.F. Malan was president. He announced his retirement and on the 30th of November and J.G. Strijdom became the 6th president of South Africa. A strict nationalist and a proponent of racial segregation that led to the establishment of the Apartheid system.
The world was a less crowded place than it is today, with a total population of 2,750,000,000. Motoring was cheap; a gallon of petrol in the US cost 22 cents. I remember visiting my grandparents, I would often spend weekends there. I was a very active child, they were always happy to see me but more than a weekend may have been too much. They were very average people but on Sundays there would always be chicken and two meats. In the US the economy continued to grow, wives were going to work and the hardships of WW2 were becoming a thing of the past.
This was the year of Brown versus the Board of Education, segregation in US school was ruled unconstitutional but in South Africa we were headed in the opposite direction. This was the year that the first mass vaccination against polio took place. We all lined up at school for our polio vaccinations, I am not sure of the year but it was around this time.
In the United States the McCarthy era came to an end. Many lives had been destroyed. Senator McCarthy was formally censured by the Senate he faded into the background and died in 1957.
On the international front 1954 saw the end of the First Indo-China war. The French suffered a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu. At the Geneva Conference the 17th parallel became the border between North and South Vietnam with the north being communist.
Captured French Soldiers from Dien Bien Phu
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Eisenhower coins the Cold War phrase, the Domino Theory to explain the spread of communism. The Communist Party is banned in the United States. In Kenya 10,000 Mau Mau rebels are rounded up by the British forces. In the UK rationing finally ends, nine years after the end of the war.
A new record is set by Roger Bannister when he completes the mile in under four minutes. Elvis Presley begins his musical career and the world of music will never be the same again. Rock around the Clock featuring Hill Haley and his Comets is aired, Rock and Roll has arrived. Other hits include Sh-Boom by the Crew-Cuts, Rags to Riches by Tony Bennett, Secret Love by Doris Day and the Chordettes with Mr Sandman. In South Africa our own Spokes Mashiyane’s Ace Blues became the biggest African hit of the year and launched the pennywhistle into the mainstream. Skokiaan is released in South Africa within a year more than 19 cover versions appear.
Skokiaan
Popular Books are: The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers by the same, Lord of the Flies by William Golding and Live and let Die by Ian Fleming.
Unfortunately the Cold War brought the threat of Nuclear War ever closer. The United States tested seven Nuclear Bombs on Bikini Atoll.
Castle Bravo Test 1st March 1954
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