Sharon writes:
I have just read your article [about Thulane Popoyi] with interest, because I lived in the Melville/Auckland Park area all my life, and attended Melville Primary School. Back in the ’70s and ’80s you could walk to school alone, I would go play in Faan Smit Park for hours then walk home on my own. I lived about two and a half km from the Melville swimming pool, I would walk there and back, day in and day out. Melville was like a little village, where The Mixer is now used to be The Scala Movie House. Down 7th Avenue was the grocer man, the pharmacy, the dentist, and other very quaint little shops, it had quite a rustic charm about it that you just cannot buy. Now it’s a very different story the whole of Melville has deteriorated shockingly, it is over-run with pubs, clubs bars and loud music and even louder, intoxicated students.
The cars that have been stolen and the muggings that take place there are a daily occurrence. My family and I saw the writing on the wall many years ago and moved out, and exactly what we feared would happen has, it’s become another cesspit, just like what happened to Rocky Street years back.
So it does not come as any shock that someone was stabbed in a club in Melville. I don’t believe it will be the first or last such incident.
