Neville Jackson
Neville has countless stories to tell about life in Claremont – and to this day, still returns to St Matthews Church on 2nd Avenue weekly as part of a generous team who clean & maintain the church.
Born in 1945, Neville married his wife, Jennifer Jackson (nee Francis) in Wynberg in 1972, and they lived with their two sons in Heathfield after being removed from Claremont.
An passionate story-teller, Neville enjoys recanting stories of life at sea as a fisherman since the age of 12, stories of his sons who he is fiercely proud of, and of the unique and wonderful place that was Claremont before the forced removals.
Full house, full hearts
We lived on 1st Avenue. 3 Burnley Terrace, 40, First Avenue.We were fourteen cousins living in one house. There were advantages to that, because when you wanted to play games – cards or dominoes or whatever – there were always people to play with. And if you wanted to go the Lux, and the Lux showed the same show the whole week – so you have a choice over which night you want to go. Perhaps on Monday night, three of you want to go, Tuesday maybe six want to go, there were always people to go with. We would go every week, and there was no shortage of people to go with.
Going into the Lux was cheap, but buying things there was expensive. There was a shop on the corner and we weren’t rich, so we’d get off the train at Wittebome and buy chips & things which the shopkeeper put in a brown paper bag & we’d take that to the queue for the Lux. Sometimes we’d all walk back home together, a huge group of us, from Wynberg to Claremont.
Sunday Lunch
And on Sundays we wouldn’t all go to church, because some of us would stay at home to help with the cooking for Sunday lunch. Every family in the home made their own meal. Some would make roast, or beans curry, and such. Us kids, what we did was, we used to swap. If I feel like roast & I have curry, then I would swap with one of my cousins. That’s how it was!
Neville Jackson, aged 69