The Kommetjie of Old

--:--
This is the story of Jacob and Louisa Daniels from Kommetjie, a small coastal village on the South Peninsula of the Cape. Jacob Daniels first arrived in Kommetjie in 1918. By 1967, he married Louisa, and together they raised a family of twelve children who enjoyed all the natural beauty and resources Kommetjie had to offer.

In 1972, Kommetjie was declared a White Group Area, and the Daniels family was forcibly removed to Ocean View, a township three kilometres to the east of Kommetjie.

In this podcast, Johanna Williams and Louisa Layters remember the love and hard work that shaped their parents’ lives and their contribution to the development of Kommetjie.

Photo credit: Louisa Layters, Peter James Layters and their niece on their wedding day in Kommetjie. Image supplied by Louisa Layters and Johanna Williams.

Guests: Johanna Williams & Louisa Layters
Featuring: Ayanda Mpono
Story, narration, editing & sound design: Lisa Hendricks
Music: AleXZavesa, Pixabay

All podcasts and digital stories can be found on YouTube & iono.fm.
Find the podcasts here https://www.youtube.com/@districtsixmuseum1867 and https://iono.fm/c/7917.

The oral history programme is funded by the Mellon Foundation.
18 Nov English South Africa History · Documentary

Other recent episodes

Broken Palaces

David Bam said it perfectly, they lived in the “broken palaces” of District Six. When everyone was packing up their belongings, loading them onto trucks and arriving at locations alien to them, the Bam family stayed behind, defying The Group. As demolitions were taking place, they moved from one “broken…
22 Nov 7 min

The Dry Docks of District Six

Why did they call it the “Dry Docks” of District Six? Was it because so many stevedores lived there? Was it because they had a view of the Cape Town harbour? Or was it because the streets in the area were named after historic dockyards in England? We may never…
21 Nov 10 min

The Separate Amenities Act

In 1948, the National Party won the election, and South Africa became known as an Apartheid State. New segregationist laws were introduced, people were racially classified, and public spaces were categorised as European and Non-European. In this podcast, you will hear some of our interviewees reflect on their experience of…
20 Nov 20 min

Leaving Luyolo

Leaving Luyolo tells the story of the 1965 forced removals from Luyolo, a township located on the Simon’s Town mountains overlooking Long Beach. Established in 1896, Luyolo’s first residents were labourers working on the Southern Railway line. They were young single men living in dormitory-style housing units. By the late…
19 Nov 13 min

We Lived off the Land: Stories of Simon's Town

The Simonites, as they like to be called, remember a different way of life, picking fruit from their neighbour’s trees, foraging for berries in the mountain and scavenging for limpets amongst the rocks on the beaches they called their own. Guest: Sakiena Meyer, Elizabeth Petersen, Patricia Langford, Vivienne Cloete, Nancy…
5 May 2023 10 min