Mark Davies: Memories of living in South Africa during the 1960s (BSL)

On 27th April 1960, I was born in Bethal, South Africa.  When I was two years old, I was diagnosed as being profoundly Deaf.  It was a huge shock and setback for my family for a very long time.

My father, John, worked as a priest in Bethal.  In 1962, my mother, Shirley, and John decided to move to live with my two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, in Johannesburg.  I did not know if Johannesburg would be suitable and safe for our family.  John was able to get a job and he and Shirley were able to find a home in Johannesburg.

In 1963, I began to wear school uniform and attended St. Vincent School For The Deaf, in Johannesburg. I began to wear heavy and bulky hearing aids.  Sign language and black Deaf pupils were forbidden. I was once punished in the corner of a classroom.  My teachers were the nuns.

My parents gave me lifts to school until I travelled by electrical trams from home to St Vincent School.  There I learnt to knit.  My parents watched me swimming once in a swimming pool beside St Vincent School.

During one lunch hour, I saw a white Deaf school boy who was badly burnt which was worrying.  In addition, I saw older Deaf pupils signing (South African Sign Language.) Black people were allowed to work as the servants for this school at that time.

Shirley and the nuns worked very hard teaching me how to talk, lipread,  hear, listen and write and I had to use my hearing aids.

Once, when I walked from my school, I saw a black woman crossing the busy road.  Suddenly, a car hit her badly and she fell to the road.  The people who saw the accident were very angry with me because I was just watching what happened and didn’t call out.  An ambulance arrived to this road and gave the lady a lift to the hospital.  I travelled by tram to my family’s home.

Every Friday evening, John gave a lift to the members of our family to attend the open-air cinemas to watch the box-office movies. The subtitles were never included.

I was glad that my siblings Liz and Mary were able to attend their schools in Johannesburg and accepted it as a big city. There we visited Johannesburg Zoo. John took many photos and produced many films. Shirley was an outstanding and young mother and volunteer for black people in the community.

One Sunday morning, John gave his presentation and signed for me with Shirley, Liz and Mary at a church in Johannesburg.  Other Sunday mornings, black people allowed us to attend their churches at the black townships.  It was extremely rare because all the members of my family were white.  I found it quite extraordinary.

My visit to Soweto was one the greatest and most important experiences of my entire life in South Africa and United Kingdom.  A huge memory for me was living in Johannesburg and travelling to visit the black church in Soweto.

Soweto was filled with terrible housing, roads, diseases and so much poverty for black people.  However, it was also passionate about black rights, anti-apartheid campaign, tribal languages and cultures for black people. This community helped me enormously when I had a crisis.

Once when I was at home in Melrose, Johannesburg, I rocked, sitting on a chair, and suddenly, I fell backwards from the chair to the floor.  As a result, I had arthritis in my neck and this arthritis lasted all my life.

During some weekends and during the holidays, my family travelled by car to the excellent and quiet caravan parks and to Durban, Elizabeth Port and Cape Town. John always drove this car, with a caravan filled with tents for  many hundreds of miles.

The roads were sometimes tarmacked and mostly not tarmacked (sand and dust). The rural toilets were terrible and basic. The caravan parks and the beaches were brilliant and hot – much better than the United Kingdom at that time.

The ground was so hot that I always had to wear sandals, I couldn’t go barefoot.  We would eat lunch at a café inside a static ship.  We played many games inside the caravan and tent.  Anti-insect boxes were hanging inside the tent to repel insects.

I remember once we lost our pet dog and then we travelled by car looking for the dog.  Finally we found it. John was a competent mechanic and maintained his car a lot so we were able to drive far.

My family campaigned for black rights and anti-apartheid campaigns at university in Johannesburg when John worked there.  Pro-apartheid supporters drove their cars and threw many tomatoes towards my family and other anti-apartheid supporters.

My family and the friends of John and Shirley put many things, like, food, clothes and blankets into the cars and then we travelled to Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia to visit the tents where the black people lived.  We gave these things to the black people.

My best friend back then was Justin Baker and my family met him at his home with his family.  He was severely disabled and Deaf.  My family were forced to immigrate to live in the United Kingdom in July 1970 and I have been here since then.

By Mark Davies, son of Shirley and John Davies.