Page 94 - Bulletin 23- 2020

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local legend has it that Hugh was the first Kalk Bay boy to die in action his army record shows
this was not so. What it does show is a very brave man. He had ‘signed up’ aged 20 and been

wounded at the battle of El Alamein in 1942 and returned to his family on a hospital ship. He

was wounded again on his return to Italy before the fatal sniper shot on 16 April 1945.

His father James died in 1955 while living at Huguenot in Harris Road – a house he had bought

the year before. At the time he was director and owner of New Art Plastics (Pty) Ltd. The Goles

family of Windsor Road had known the McCallums for years. The Croft was to be sold at
auction and the Goles family story is that ‘Golie’ (Mrs Judith Goles of Arcadia, Windsor Road)

as she was known, was asked by her good friend, the widow Mrs McCallum, to go along and bid
the price up. As I have been told ‘the Greeks and others were circling as they always did in the

hopes of a bargain’. However, as it happened, Mrs Goles came home shocked to tell the family
the news that having bid the price up all others suddenly withdrew and, subject to a mortgage,

the house was hers. A mortgage was approved on the security of the house and on her house

Arcadia in Windsor Road – family finances were severely stretched. Mrs. Goles paid £1,600 -
still 20% below its original price after 36 years.

The Croft was rented out for years and then became the property of Judith Goles’ daughter Elpis.

On her death the property was transferred to brother Peter Goles. So the ‘mistake’ at the auction
can be seen to be a win with the house owned by the Goles family for 66 years. Following the

death of Peter Goles the family sold The Croft in 2021. (Fig. 3.27).

An unusual story of old Kalk Bay

The façade of the house Craig View at 7 Ladan Road (erf 89948) – one of many built by Louis

Ladan around 1920 – masks one of the most unusual, and in some ways significant, stories I’ve

come across in many years of researching Kalk Bay history. (Fig. 3.28).

In 1897 the plot had been sold to Sarah Caroline Fish, the wife of Charles McDonald Fish – one

of the well-known families based at Windsor House. In 1901 she sold to the Trustees of the Kalk

Bay Congregation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This was the first time I had