The District 6 community who lived within a community

FIFTY years ago today, Joe Schaffers married his sweetheart, Audrey Elias. He lived in Block C of Bloemhof Flats in the heart of District Six, which occupied the site where the garages are.

Elias lived in Block G, the main block in the “then” picture taken by Schaffers.

“It was a very short distance for a courtship,” he said.

Because the area had been proclaimed a white group area, the only married accommodation they could find was on the Cape Flats, first in Lansdowne, then Vanguard Estate and Hanover Park, and eventually Fairways.

Schaffers, 77, a retired health inspector, was born in 1939, the same year his family moved into Block C. The building was so new, his parents told him, that the cement was wet.

The 10 blocks, between Constitution, McKenzie and Roeland streets and Drury Lane, were built by the muni- cipality as part of an upgrade of the area.

Schaffers said the people who lived there were a community within a community. The flats were self-contained and included a community centre, library, crèche, clinic and a rent office. Lots of activities were on offer, among them body- building, table tennis, badminton and health and beauty.

The Schaffers’ flat had three bedrooms, a lounge, kitchen and bathroom. The family paid R2.50 rent a week. Smaller flats were cheaper.

Schaffers says his parents were “lucky, in a sense”, because they died before they were forced out of the area.

In those days, he says, people could walk to wherever they needed to be – work, school, church or mosque.

But after the removals, people found themselves living 15km to 30km away, and had the additional burdens of the costs and time of commuting.

Schaffers took the picture of Block G in the late 1980s. After the coloured residents were moved out, the flats were tarted up, renamed Skyways and sold to white people.

However today, once again, they are home to a mix of people, says Schaffers.

The “now” picture was taken by Weekend Argus photographer Tracey Adams, whose father Sedick lived in McKenzie Street and was a great friend of Schaffers when he was growing up. Today Schaffers works as a historian and storyteller at the District Six Museum.