Number 75: The attached picture reflects, firstly, the newspaper Birth announcement of Raymond: “To Marcelle nee A’ Cohen and Solly, a son on June 17 at St Joseph’s Sanatorium Pinelands  Both well”. My parents often relayed to me the terrible storm on the night, eventually early morning, that I was born. There was a tension filled 38 mile (some 60 Kilometre) drive from Paarl, where my parents lived  to what is now the Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Cape Town.

Then my “Bris” 8 Days later: “BRIS MELAH  Schkolne, –  The Bris Melah of the infant son of Marcelle (nee a’ Cohen) and Solly, will take place at 10. 15 a.m. on Tuesday, 25^th June, 1957, at the St. Joseph’s Sanatorium Pinelands. Brocha thereafter at “Treves”, Silverlea Road (near corner of Prospect Hill Road), Wynberg. Relatives and friends are cordially invited”.  Wikipedia inform us that: “The brit milah (Hebrew: בְּרִית מִילָה, “covenant of circumcision”; Yiddish pronunciation: “bris” is a Jewish religious male circumcision ceremony performed by a mohel (“circumciser”) on the eighth day of the infant’s life”.

A photograph of the Kiddush Cup used at my Bris is also reflected here.

I am not sure why the first picture taken of me in a Nursing Sister’s arms was only at 10 days old and why still at a hospital?!

“Treves” in Silverlea Road has a special place in my memory: Oma singing me to sleep; incessantly playing carpet bowls with David outside the lounge where the Adults were talking; the toy cupboard – including the big slightly rusty passenger ship; the old Singer Sewing Machine; the ultra-soft old brown leather comfy chair in David’s room; pungent smell of “Lifebuoy” soap in the bathroom; chameleons on the hedge outside; the big dresser in the dining room with all the hidden Dutch liquorice and biscuits inside, on Opa’s knee while he told us stories, sitting on the green wicker chairs on the stoep…