A little while later, we moved again, this time to an apartment in a different part of town, which was nowhere near as nice as in The Avenues. The new apartment block, Fountain Court, was again very small, two-storeys high, with larger rooms, but in a more run down, industrial part of town with a car repair shop on the street nearby. There was more traffic, too, and many fewer trees. In The Avenues, mature trees lined every street on both sides, forming a canopy over the top of us. Looking back now, I can see that my parents moved to Fountain Court, not only because it was cheaper but, above all, because it had three bedrooms: one for my parents, one for the boys and a very small room for me. In fact, John and Peter squabbled so much that John often slept on the stoep, a large balcony, part of which could be screened off and made into a fourth bedroom.
By then, my mother was working as a telephone operator for Shell. She could still walk to work, as could I to school. John, however, needed to bike to his school. I am not sure of how Peter got to and from his school. I know he soon became a very close friend of a lad of his age, who lived in the same part of town, and was in Peter’s class at school. Maybe my parents took turns taking both boys to school, and this friend’s mother, who didn’t work outside the home, brought the boys home again.
We stayed in this place for about two years, I think, maybe three. I remember that, by then, my father was becoming more and more interested in amateur radio as a hobby. He went to meetings, read endless books on the topic, and soon wanted to put up an aerial in the back garden, something he could not do if we were living in an apartment. This meant we needed to move, of course.
Through his ham radio friends, he heard of a house for rent in Rowland Square, Avondale, a suburb of Salisbury a few miles away. I was about to go to our local University. By then, even though my final school examination results had not arrived, I had won a scholarship and a bursary enabling me to live in residence and to pursue an Honours degree in French. Maybe my being somewhat off their hands, gave my parents more money to spend on rent.
We moved round about Christmas, the end of the academic year, though I find it incredible that I can’t remember this move. Perhaps it was because I was so used to “movin’, movin’, movin’” or maybe it was because I was anxiously awaiting my final school A-level examination results from UK (where all papers were marked by the Associated Examining Board) and worried about heading to university in late January or early February.
Our lives were changing fast, and we children were growing up, heading along different paths. I was 18, John 16 and Peter 12. John had one more year to go at high school, before he, too, would go to university, though he wouldn’t attend our local university which was so small that it didn’t offer engineering. John would have to go to South Africa, or maybe he might make it to England, but he would need to win a scholarship of some kind to do so. Peter was still in Junior School.
