Steurhof (A 16)

Name: Steurhof

Diep River, Meadowridge, Steurhof, Plumstead, Claremont, Kenilworth or Rondebosch.

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Historic fact:

It was an emotional homecoming for a group of apartheid era forced removals victims on Saturday when they were handed "ownership" rights to land they once called home.

Nearly half a century after being forcibly removed to the Cape Flats, the former residents of Steurhof, near Plumstead, excitedly renewed ties with former friends and neighbours.

Rosaline Coker, who was moved to Lavender Hill, told Weekend Argus it was a very emotional day for her.

Her husband Fred, who died in January, grew up and went to school in Steurhof and later became vice-principal of South Peninsula High School.



Other interesting info:

A year or two ago, an old friend of mine, Jones, was sitting in her home when she heard the sound of a coconut hitting concrete. Intrigued, she wandered outside. Her house borders Steurhof station in Cape Town's southern suburbs, and, hearing a commotion, she peered over her wall. The concrete, it turned out, had been the platform of the station and the coconut had been the head of a young woman, mugged and thrown off a moving train.

As a small crowd of commuters gathered around the bloodied and shocked heap, Jones ran back into her house and dialed 10111. Yes, she panted, she'd like to report someone thrown off a train at Steurhof. She was hurt, she thought, but not … The operator cut in.

"You want to report a what?" he said.

"A woman has been thrown off a train."

"Off a what?"

"A train. At Steurhof station."

"Is he still on the train?"

"What?"

"Is the person who has been assaulted still on the train?"

And so it went. Was the train still in the station? Why had the woman been thrown off the train? What was Jones's name? What? Joan? Oh, Jones. Did Jones know the woman who had thrown the, er, oh, who had been thrown off the train? Finally he decided that an officer of the law needed to be dispatched and asked for the name of the station. A minute later Jones was still halfway through trying to spell out "Steurhof". At last, raising her voice, she resorted to fuzz lingo.

"It's STEURHOF. Sierra, Tango, Echo, Uniform, Romeo, Hotel, Oscar, Romeo!"

There was a long pause, and then the operator said, "What?"

Bellowing, Jones demanded to speak to someone who knew all the letters of the alphabet, at which point there was the sound of a mouth slapping shut.

"You are irritating me now," said the operator, and hung up. End of story.

Thanks to countless similar examples of primordial public service, it has become too easy, and too fashionable, to deride the country's police force as a back­water where the recently lobotomised go to spend their summers scraping applesauce off their bibs and their winters huddled over braziers full of blazing dockets. This is a cruel and sweeping generalisation. Many police are extraordinarily brave, superbly trained and show the sort of devotion to their work that suggests policing is a calling rather than a profession.

The officers of the Claremont station, for instance, have a reputation for responding with otherworldly haste. No sooner has one started speaking into the telephone than they arrive, with squawks and blue flashes and Roger-Rogers and static, toting portable howitzers and light-sabers, to tell Mrs Liebestein downstairs to turn down her Pat Boone LP.

No, there are some superb officers on the beat. But there are also some truly appalling ones. It may be a thin blue line here and there but, at least in its call centres, the South African Police Service can be extraordinarily thick.

http://www.mg.co.za/printformat/single/2007-08-11-the-thick-blue-line

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