I have just received this photo from a friend of mine that grew up in Woodlands. Apparently during the 1950s, this man would walk the streets of Woodlands beating his drum asking for donations. When given a donation he would beat his drum and do a bit of a soft shoe shuffle before moving on. Just recently on FB someone was asking if anyone remembered him. Part of the passing parade.
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HUGH JAMES
During this time there was a very fit black who marched down Berea Road at a likkety pace and was named Johnny Walker. At the intersections he would do a marching time raising his knees better than the Grenadier Guards. I thought he wasn’t all there. Anyone recall him?
Joe van der Merwe
I can remember the “boom boom” man, as we called him, when I was a young child growing up in Lower Glenwood in the Clark Road area. Obviously he was a lot younger then and his repertoire consisted of holding the “drum”‘ next to his ear and singing a few songs and rounding off with “God Save the King”, if he had received sufficient pennies, by his reckoning, he would also do a few cartwheels and then move on. I vaguely recall reading of his passing in the Daily News in later years and it was mentioned that he had accumulated quite a healthy bank balance as a result of the pennies that he had performed for.