I recently met up with a girl from my schooldays (I'm talking 40+ years here). She saw me on Fish Hoek beach and told me she recognized me instantly and I hadn't changed a bit. I suspect that shared memories of an idyllic childhood clouded her vision somewhat, but it was nevertheless true for her as well. We reminisced over those halcyon days at Clovelly Country Club when the pool was the domain of the local Clovelly children.
There were two routes to the Club. One was the road which wound along the contours of the mountain past my house, and the other was down through the valley along the quiet byways to a footpath leading onto the golf course. I well remember how we used to walk along the white line in the middle of the road because the tar was too hot to walk on - shoes were seldom worn in those days, apparently. If we went bundu-bashing as a shortcut, we soon found out where the patches of devil-thorns were!
We would spend the whole day at the pool, sustaining ourselves with cooldrinks and rolls of winegums or Chocolate Logs (remember those?) from the caddy shop. If we were lucky and had a bit of pocket money, we could sometimes coax a toasted sandwich from the kitchen at the clubhouse. We had to wear blue rubber wristbands to identify ourselves as club members and legally allowed to be on the property. These we got from the office at the beginning of summer and only handed them back in autumn when the days were cool and the pool was allowed to go green for winter.
The pool is no longer there, but the memories of our carefree youth will permeate the area forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment