Remembering the Hollandtjie

When you drive down the main drag of Simonstown, otherwise known as St George's Street, you eventually get to what is, today, the Magistrates Court. It sits on the corner of Cole Point Road and St George's Street. Next to the Court is the Police Station. The NG Kerk in turn, sits opposite the police station on the corner of (you guessed it) Kerk Straat. Kerk Straat, today takes you to the entrance of the South African Naval Dockyard (or as we often referred to it as the Yard, not to be confused with a jaard, which refers to any space at the back of a house where people like us used to live). A jaard with a hokkie and a brakkie. That's us.

I digress. I want to focus on that block on this post. The block between Cole Point Road and Kerk Straat.

But I want to go back 56 years to 1965. I was 10. Kerk Straat started at the intersection guarded on one side by the police station and on the other side by the Kerk. I could never understand the white ties. My recall was that walking from Cole Point Road you went by Mrs Khans shop (I think her name was Amina and her sons were Farouk and Booly). Next to her shop was Mr Leigh's Mobil Garage where Nelson worked, that is before he moved to Cliffords Garage, owned by Mr Leigh's son. Where my dad worked.

Next to the garage was a lane that took you down into a courtyard behind Jenks Building. My Aunty Sybil and Uncle William Beukes lived next to Uncle Hennie and Aunty Ivy Bull at the back of the building. The front was where Raffee’s shops were (and I think Kessow or Kaildas).

The courtyard abutted the Police cells and often on a Friday night you would hear the shouts from the cells 'Sybil, Sybil is Boeta hieso, gaan se vir my ma ek is innie tronk. Hulle moet my ko haal.' Often - sometimes my uncles. Mostly drunken mischief. Jeez did our men drink.

In 1965, Kerk Straat went down past the Police Station and policemen’s houses, made a left bend, passed the tennis courts that nobody used and then ran into Cole Point Road. That was the photo that Kenny posted on his Facebook page yesterday.

There was a lane (the laantjie) that ran down from the 'courtyard' between the seldom used tennis court and the jaards of the Cole Point Road houses.

As an aside. Trevor William Beukes and I grew up on a healthy diet of WWII stories. Uncle William, Uncle Johnny, Uncle Cliffy, Uncle Ronnie all served in North Africa. Oh and there was an endless supply of war movies at the Criterion (The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navaron) books from the library (Alistair Maclean) and the Valiant comics (Sarge and Batman).

Aunty Sybil had an outdoor toilet that overlooked the courtyard and was big enough to park the bicycles in. Trevor and I used the toilet as our headquarters for planning and executing our battles with the Germans. After a few years we stopped because we had won WWII 13 times -so successful were our military adventures. Also my sister Valda Cupido and cousin Nettie Matthews had perfected their Mata Hari impersonations and eavesdropped on our plans and then sold our military secrets to the enemy. It was getting harder to win the war.

MK coulda done with our military expertise.

Anyway, back to the main story.

When you emerged from the laantjie, a whole new world opened up. It's like the sunlight was different. You spilled out of the lane onto Jaffer Beach. We will ignore Kerk Straat in this scene. Jaffer was less of a beach but more of a rocky shoreline. There was no sand - just rock and stones. To the left was a very large flat rock on which the trek fishermen's shed was built. It was, by far, the best spot for trekking haarders. And there was no kakpyp (sewer outfall). And jirre there is little better than fresh pan fried haarders for breakfast.

Jaffer beach was a small stretch between the trek hut and a short sandstone wall, against which was the wreck of a small trawler. I always remember that trawler there. Jaffer Beach was for sightseeing. It was teeming with life. Mussels, periwinkle's, gups, star fish, urchins, small fish, kelp etc. It was like a scene described by Doc in John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

The real magic was on the other side of the little sand stone wall - the 100m stretch from Jaffer Beach to the great big wall that enclosed the Admirals Beach. This was the Hollandtjie (Little Holland - for God knows why). To get to the Hollandtjie you needed to climb down about 20 steps from the bend in Kerk Straat. The entrance was hidden by some bushes and if you didn't know about it you could very easily miss the beach. Which was just right for the locals.

The Jaffer/Hollandtjie trek and beach combination was a little bay that was perhaps 250m long and was completely sheltered by the Dockyard breakwaters.

The Hollandtjie had soft white sand and was completely wind sheltered. There was another large flat black granite rock (Platklip) about 30m from beach. It was about 20m long and about 5m wide. To the south of it were three jaggered rock out crops named The Three Sisters. There was a narrow gap with quite a hectic rip that went through the gap, so us laaities were warned no to swim there.

But of course, I was invincible. And one day over the Xmas holidays, lekker sterk gevriet, I went to dive off one of the 3 sisters. Needless to say that if it wasnt for Cheryl Govinder, I doubt if I would be writing this. So I spent the rest of the holidays swimming around the Frikkadeltjie.

Our parents had this rule that we couldn't swim the week before Xmas. It was like it's okay to drown after you wore your Xmas clothes. ‘We not going to waste money buying Xmas clothes and then you go die before you wear it.’ the logic still baffles me.

During school term, I would go to Aunty Sybils house after school. My mum was always doing something like working in the library, concert practice etc.

We were not allowed to swim on a school day. Where did they get these rules? So Trevor and I would be allowed to go ‘walk in the water’. Then I swear every day we would trip and fall and get wet. So we thought ‘Ag, we going to get whacked, so we might as well swim.’ And we tripped and fell every day. We became good at dodging Aunty Sybils linkepoort klap.

Hollandtjie was that kind of beach. You took the pain with the pleasure. We loved it. But we loved it most when our big cousins would spend the day on the beach with us. Channa, Guppie, Wurm, Nettie, Carol, June, Erica (Sadia), Thomisa, Loretta were there with us. And we loved it when we had our little cousins Robin, Gary, Grant, Carole, Edward, Raymond, Wilma, Gordon, Nolleen, Merle, Tokkie among others with us. Megan, Kavin and some of the younger ones were either not born or too young to join us.

It was very much a family beach (for us). And as far as we were concerned, Boulders Beach had/has nothing on Hollandtjie. I see those azure blue little beaches on the Greek coast and I think to myself, Hollandtjie wannabe.

It broke my heart when we were forcibly removed in 1968. They broke my heart again when the Hollandtjie was ‘reclaimed’ to make space for a new dockyard. Reclaimed from what? Frigging Group Areas Act where nature is oppressed. I hated that when I went to work every day, years later, that I was entering the dockyard at the spot where we had once descended the steps to the Hollandtjie.

And as Owen Davids, pointed out, more dockyard for so few ships. What a waste. Sometimes progress just sucks.

So this is for all who swam the warm waters of the Hollandtjie or dived a ‘platpens’ off the Frikkedeltjie or who braved The Three Sisters or who just sunned themselves on the Platklip or who helped trek haarders as the dawn broke. To those who still miss it, I raise my OB glass tonight to you all.

My friend, TheartistinAthlone Kenneth M Alexander, will be painting Simonstown scenes in the near future. Kenny, I hope you can see into our hearts and paint that as well.

Above is a photo of Trevor and I taking a break from fighting WWII and falling in the water. We had just beaten Germany in the World Cup as well.

Written by Simonite Warren Conrad

The Hollandtjie

The Hollandtjie

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