Police chiefs from Mitchell’s Plain’s precincts have wished the Plainsman well on its 40th anniversary.
Lentegeur acting station commander Lieutenant Colonel Harry Brickles, who was raised in Woodlands, recalls being excited to get his weekly dose of local soccer on the sports pages of the Plainsman as a boy, when he played for Woodlands soccer club. He revelled in reading about his club and rivals Ajax soccer club.
“I loved soccer,” he says.
“As children we used to scroll through the pages to see the pictures. It was good years. I can still remember.”
He recalls the railway line ending in Manenberg and buses transporting commuters from there to Mitchell’s Plain close to the fire station in Westridge in Dagbreek Avenue. And how the Plainsman reported on the opening of the Town Centre in 1980.
“When it opened, it was like going to the city centre – this big place, where everyone liked to go.”
His parents were originally from Grassy Park but moved to Orpheus Crescent in Woodlands in 1976, a stone’s throw from the community’s first police station in Silversands Avenue, Westridge.
He attended Northwood Primary School and Woodlands High School before going to police training college.
From college he was deployed to Mitchell’s Plain police station. Later, he moved to Lentegeur police station which opened in May 2013. He was appointed visible-policing commander there in 2018 but is presently acting station commander.
“To the Plainsman I say, ‘happy birthday’. May you grow from strength to strength – to continue sharing the good stories and memories of Mitchell’s Plain.”
Strandfontein station commander Captain David Malong thanked the Plainsman for keeping the community in touch with what was happening on the ground.
“Thank you for your unbiased reporting. Thank you to the editorial staff. Here’s to another 40 years,” he said.
Mitchell’s Plain police station commander Brigadier Cass Goolam said he had always had a positive relationship with the Plainsman.
“I appreciate the reports of positive criticism, which have made us grow as a station,” he said.