Page 227 - Bulletin 9 2005

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Observatory. Via Kloof Nek and the new Camps Bay Drive it is 4¾ miles by road...By
taking advantage of the assistance we offer, the young couple of today can select their

plot with expert advice and can obtain preliminary sketches of the house they want
without incurring expense. We then prepare the working drawings, the specifications

and the details; we obtain the Council's approval; we build and we make all

arrangements for light, water and drainage...we arrange the finance and we hand the
house over ready in every respect for occupation. The young householder pays a

monthly sum which is considerably less than he would pay in rent...In 10 to 15
years...when he has paid his instalments and the house is his, he is bound to admit that

‘it is only the fool - who does not build when conditions such as these are possible.’"

Soon it was only the foolish who regarded Camps Bay as a windswept waste and with

conditions such as these to tempt prospective home owners, Cohen's confidence in the
suburb was fully justified and Camps Bay became the In Place for young couples.

Roads zigzagged up the mountain sides. Houses sprang up. People were living there,

and not only for six weeks in the summer. With the availability of motor transport and
good roads, Cape Town was now near and accessible, both for shopping and for work.

And after work there was the beautiful coastline fringed by Mr Farquhar's palm trees
where the family could go to relax.

Segregation

After the war a pigmentocracy came to power that ruled with a rigid net of apartheid
legislation intended to prevent economic and social integration, including a National

Party fantasy of ridding the entire Western Cape of Africans who would become
citizens of their own homelands. Christopher Hope described it as running the country

on the lines of a human zoo, with different species confined to their own cages, and in
the way of defenders of zoos, the organisers argued that they were not really

imprisoning the animals, but rather protecting their freedom and independence by

preventing the exploitation of weaker species by the stronger.