District 6 – Manuel, Franck, Hatfield

For thousands of men, and women too, all over the world for the soldiers and sailors of two world wars, and the seamen and tourists whose ships have called at the Cape mention of District Six evokes memories of an area unique and fascinating in its variety. District Six : exciting with its hints of vice and danger; engaging in the warm vitality of its multi-coloured inhabitants; surprising, perhaps, in its sudden stretches of respectability and modest prosperity; moving in the evidence of religious feeling offered by its churches, mosques and chapels ; interesting in the curious variety of its architectural styles.

This book is not a detailed history, although the emergence of District Six is described. It is not a painstaking sociological survey, although its sections on skollies, gambling, shebeens and dagga (marijuana) are written after personal investigation. It offers informed, affectionate and often amusing descriptions and stories of the background and way of life of the people of all sorts and conditions who, until the area was declared White, have lived together in the most interesting area of Cape Town.

They are on the move now, and it is fortunate that George Manuel, who has lived in District Six, and Bruce Franck, who has spent many brilliantly productive weeks there, and Denis Hatfield, who has known it for nearly thirty years, should have come together at this time to capture and convey its atmosphere before it dwindles (as one of them sadly says) into a suburb with a name instead of a number, and an aura of unrelieved respectability.