The Slum

The slum When I was born the manger was occupied I got a cot at a Home run by the salvation- army and stayed the until my step-grandmother committed suicide by jumping out of the third-floor window, she was going to join my grandfather A funny thing about the window it kept opening up by itself for years afterwards. The home, the SA ran was called the slum, the flat we got nearby, as was also the big white house belonging to a shipping magnate, he was born in the house and was not about to leave for a fancy building out of town. For us children, it was just a name and had no connotation of poverty or low life. My best friend Alf lived permanently at the Home and later became a chief train conductor in South Africa. I met him once in Johannesburg entrenched in middle classness big house and servants, something of a change from the slum.