Girmit · Family stories · Stories · Clairwood
A place in your family’s story · A suburb of south Durban
Clairwood
Clairwood is a suburb in the south of Durban. Many Indian families lived there through the twentieth century, and many of those families were later moved elsewhere in the city.
This page does not tell you what Clairwood was like. It holds what your family remembers, in the order they remember it. Sisters will remember it differently, and that is part of the record.
Stories set in Clairwood
- Voice3:56
The Saturday vegetable cart
Told by Leela · about Ganga
Saturday mornings, a cart in the street and a mother who never hurried a purchase.
- Video3:34
Walking to school
Told by Thangam · about Leela
Big ones holding little ones' hands, and a girl from the next street who was never ready.
- WrittenRead
The wedding the whole street cooked for
Told by Pushpa · about Ganga, Perumal
Too small to be useful, so she watched the gate and remembers who came in, and in what order.
- Photo1:18
The photograph on the verandah
Told by Leela · about Ganga, Perumal, Thangam
One print, three people and a missing photographer.
- Voice4:41
Sweets at midnight
Told by Thangam · about Ganga, Leela
The night before the festival, nobody was asleep, and everybody pretended to be.
- WrittenRead
The last evening in the old house
Told by Leela · about Ganga, Perumal, Thangam
Boxes, newspaper round the cups, and a table already gone.
The family’s stories by decade
Each row is the decade a story is set in, as the family remembers it. Empty rows show where nobody has been asked yet.
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
No stories yet. A good place to ask next.
1990s
No stories yet. A good place to ask next.
1994 The first democratic election in South Africa. A national date, not a family story.