“Woodstock is more colourful now than it used to be in the old days when it was a white group area. Now there are Egyptians, Somalians and French speaking people living here, for example,” says Mr Abdulmutallieb Parker, the owner.

We are sitting in the lounge of the house in which he was born and lives today, around the corner from his shop on the corner of Roodebloem and Salisbury Roads, Woodstock. He is talking about everything from his youth, the shop and its history, to the bad old days in Woodstock. He is a discrete and humane man, proud in an understated way, alert to political and social currents. His commentary is both humorous and critical, and he has a wealth of memories about this area on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, above the docks, between the city and the suburbs.

Born sixty six years ago at 37 Salisbury Street, Mr Parker’s story spans the industrial and social revolution of the second half of the twentieth century. His first schooling was had at the Wesley Practising School in Durham Avenue, Salt River. Everyday after school he would go to the Muslim Madresse in Addison Street, and three times a week to Urdu lessons in Kipling Street, Salt River. At the age of seven he was sent to Bombay Province in India to complete his schooling, returning only once in 1953 to renew his passport. He is a keen student of the Urdu and Persian languages and an active member of the local Urdu Literature Society. He writes poetry in both Urdu and English and read one of his poems, ‘Dialogue’, to Nelson Mandela soon after he was released. He has written poetry about Soweto ’76 and Palestine, and for various ceremonial occasions.

He returned to South Africa aged twenty-two to help his dad in the shop his grandfather had opened in the early 1920s. “I was glad to be reunited with the friends from my youth. It was good to be back and to be able to eat the best apricot jam, crushed wheat and cheese in the world again. We used to play soccer on the ‘paddock’ above the baths. The little park below was ‘whites only’. This was a ‘white’ group area then and there were only half a dozen or so Muslim and Coloured families living here, including the Jobs’s, Lewis’s and Gabiers’. The lady who lived at 56 Roodebloem Road said my name – which is the name of the grandfather of our Prophet – was too long and so she called me ‘John’, and that’s what I was called.”

Originally situated in the building that is now Emily’s Restaurant, ‘S.E. Parker’s General Provision Grocer’ preceded the age of the soulless supermarket and monochromed Seven-Eleven. Open from six to eleven, it was an over the counter store – now it’s self-service – and stocked “top grade imported stuff”, as well as local produce. “We had to abide by trading laws and on Sundays the grocery section was closed off, and cigarettes could also not be sold. One day I sold a tin of Nespray to a mother out of trading hours, and the inspector arrived and fined me twenty pounds – a lot of money in those days. What was I supposed to do? Let the child be sick ? I decided to defend myself and my father said I would lose. But in court I explained to the magistrate what the situation was. She said I must wait till the end of the day – by then the court had cleared out – and the charges were withdrawn once the court had adjourned.”

Service standards were excellent and more parochial then : “I would deliver bread to people in the neighbourhood, and if people were sick or unable to come to the store I would deliver what they needed. My father, who was a soft-hearted man and also a community worker, used to deliver coal in a cart when he was younger and he used to show us the scar which the yoke left on his chest.”

“The group areas officers used to come harass us around the late 1960s. One of them asked me when my father arrived here, and then he asked me when my grandfather arrived. I said, ‘Same as yours, in 1652, when Jan van Riebeek arrived.’ He got cross and stormed off. Next thing I got a call from the Group Areas Officer in town saying I had insulted one of his inspectors and I must come in to see him. We had tea in his office and he repeated the story. I said I was only about two hundred years out. We laughed about it and he didn’t take it further. The local residents signed a petition supporting us. We never used it, but we kept it handy just in case.”

Apartheid split families and friends, and examples are to be found everywhere on cares to look : “Every Sunday this chap used to wait outside the shop for his brother, who was lighter and classified white, to come down to pick him up in his car. He couldn’t visit his own brother in his house.”

The store of memories runs deep: “I was married in 1959 and my wife and I lived in my father’s property at 66 Chamberlain Street. When he had a stroke in 1968 we moved in here and I took over the store. Other Muslim and Coloured people managed to live in the area by forming closed corporations with whites as the major partners. Margaret Gardiner, past Miss Universe, comes from Woodstock, and also Alvon Collison and Randall Wickham the singer. Alvon still drops by when he’s in the neighbourhood.

The Abrahams’ used to be grain merchants – they owned a farm in Tulbagh – and they also owned the stables in Salisbury Road and the big house at the top of Milner Road. Mrs Legget ran a butchery across the road until the 1970s. The Beyer’s who still live in the big house, ‘Rocklands’, at the top of Roodebloem Road ran a dairy. But we couldn’t stock fresh milk- the law said we had to buy it bottled from the dairy. There also used to be a ‘whites only’ gents barber right across the road on the corner, and if I wanted a haircut I used have to go across after closing time. Mr Davids used to show films in the All Saints Church hall across the road, but there were some films ‘non-whites’ weren’t allowed to see, like ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ or ‘Dr. No’; I think there was a scene of a black and white kissing in that one. Mr Davids used say to me, ‘I’m showing ‘Dr No’ – are you coming ?’

“In the bar at the Milner Hotel, which is now Gray’s Security, is where they decided to change the old name of Papendorp to Woodstock. That old tree still stands on the grounds.”

There is a long tradition of tolerance in this neighbourhood: “Most of the whites in the area used to be mild and only occasionally were they racist. We’ve never had any robberies. There used to be a big guy in Chamberlain Street who took care of any trouble. In those days we used to go out walking in the evening, upto the paddock, and you could leave your front door open. People don’t do that so much any more. You could leave your keys in the car. A lot of the Portuguese people sold up when things opened up around 1990.”

Mr Parker is sanguine about the Woodstock of today, yet aware of the challenges faced by its residents, especially the youth. “Like I said, things are more colourful and open today. We need to find something for all the youngsters to do. We need a community centre for the youth, where they can go do things, instead of hanging around on the street because they haven’t got any work, or anything to do. Maybe a part of the hospital could be used, or the old bowling club which is standing empty. And if we could get the pool opened again. The Residents Association received a lot of support at first, like the old Ratepayers Association years ago, and we need people to be more involved again. We need another AGM.”

Time passes, people move on, disappear, die and procreate. A new generation has moved in to replace those gone. On his corner Mr Parker prevails like a touchstone of past and present Woodstock and Cape Town. Like the trees on the hill he has moved with the winds of change. He remembers, but is not embittered by the past. He has retained a dignified pride, a wry eye. He will not be moved. He and his kind are the bastions of this Cape Town of ours.

Reprinted Courtesy of Mark Muller

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