Flashback — 27 April 1984

How residents interacted with their community back in 1984 remains fascinating.

Three things in the Record edition of 27 April 1984 were shockingly different to today’s state of affairs – the price of pain killers, the cost of accommodation and the sports enjoyed by the larger Roodepoort community.

Prices as advertised in 1984 remind of the Hey Days Hyperama television advertisements of the past. Pain pills or headache tablets – an essential requirement when working in the media industry – specifically Comprals in April 1984 could be purchased from Pick n Pay for a mere 89 cents per box. This created a fascinating day dream of journalists and editors stocking up on Comprals in black-and-white film style.

Every resident of Roodepoort would be too happy to pay the same rent the working class residents did for a room back in 1984. From the Classifieds section, the following rent offerings are a recipe for depression compared to today’s bond payments and rent offerings. To rent a room for one person cost R170 per month; sharing a house with its current owner cost R250 per month, renting a single-bedroom flat cost R350 per month and a fancy duplex townhouse, being the most expensive offering in that edition, was rented out for R490 per month. These days some residents pay more for airtime per month, and a household will struggle to fill the grocery cupboard with the money required to rent a townhouse back then.

Finally, as opposed to recent Record sports pages that highlight rugby as the sport most residents enjoy, the second-last page of the 27 April 1984 edition reported on a then-recent ice hockey championship. Ice hockey!

Two of Transvaal’s top teams at the time competed for the provincial championship title at the Horizon View Ice Rink, today but a memory to long-time residents. In fact ice rinks, never mind ice hockey, have disappeared from the West Rand entirely – the closest ice rink available to West Randers these days is located in Northriding.