In my continued quest to wade through hundreds of musty boxes at the museum, I am always pleased to find something that distracts me. Bones wrapped in old newspaper is a definite winner. I still find French newspapers from the 1930's (as previously posted somewhere here) but yesterday I found a newspaper I could understand: The Argus from September 20, 1979.
The newspaper offered some interesting titbits such as a horrid interview with P.W. Botha about the growing South African economy and how segregation actually benefits it (what was the Groot Krokodil thinking?). I also found out that you could buy a new bakkie (pick-up) for around R6000 ($810), a house in Hout Bay for around R30 000 ($4000+) and a book for less than R10. New movies to us at the time included The Deer Hunter, Assault on Precinct 13, Rocky II and Alien. But you could only watch them from Wednesday to Saturday, two shows during the week and four on the weekend.
9 comments:
Wow, I just love old newspapers - especially the alliterative copy in some of the ads! Yup, they used to justify all the evil things they did in the press. This often entailed misquoting scripture.
I should have bought a house in Hout Bay the day I was born, tsk-tsk.
I love old papers and seeing what the news of the day is and what I could buy for a ridiculous amount. I'm also amused by the predictions of how science will advance us all. Sigh....
Haha, the growing South African economy! Sure it grew in the late seventies but that was only because of the sudden acceleration of the gold price.
As soon as they got into the 80s they started feeling the pinch of apartheid sanctions. Silly Afrikaaner government. SA could be so much further advanced if we hadn't suppressed the demand of the black economy.
Sigh.
Erm, that would be 'Afrikaner', not 'Afrikaaner'. And you underestimate how many white English speakers voted National in those days. As my dear father explains, he seems to be the only person who kept the previous regime running as nobody of his generation now admits to having supported their government then! White suburbia in the bad old days was Pleasantville overseen by Big Brother. Never forget that.
And...most people loved it! They lived in oblivious bliss.
heh heh..
i wonder if things will get a lot more expensive..
i love old books.. it's a window into a whole different world.
fascinating.
I love old print beit magazines, newspapers or whatever. There are so manyu interesting aspects about them. You can look at news, styles, history, word selection, writing style, etc.
Good find!
Hmm... what this blog needs is a nice new post on wine. I would send you labels if I find any interesting ones.
Post a Comment