I was stunned yesterday, 17 August 2025, to see the fans at Ellis Park in Johannesburg disappear from the stadium within ten minutes. You can’t blame them. Their home side, the Springboks, had just lost against their arch-enemies, the Australians.
It was the Wallabies’ first victory at Ellis Park since 1963—a gap of 62 years. You can imagine how bitter the taste must have been for South Africans, and how quickly the crowd melted away into the Joburg evening.
And that got me thinking about how quickly things vanish.
Take Hillbrow, for example. Its transformation from a vibrant, cosmopolitan hub to a decaying neighbourhood happened in what feels like the blink of an eye. In the 1960s and ’70s, Hillbrow was the place to be: high-rise apartments, lively streets, cafés, cinemas, and a bohemian atmosphere that attracted artists, students, and professionals. By the mid-1980s, though, it was all but gone. Overcrowding, neglect, and rapid population shifts turned Hillbrow into a very different place almost overnight.
It’s the same story elsewhere. In the 1970s, False Bay was flush with fish. Artisanal hand-line fishing at Kalk Bay was still a way of life. By the late ’80s, the decline had set in. Today, Kalk Bay Harbour is more stage set than working port. Fish are trucked in from elsewhere, displayed as though caught that morning—but the boats don’t go out anymore. A reliable source told me that yesterday plenty of fish were on sale, yet not a single boat had left the harbour.
Zoom out even further, and whole cultural movements disappear just as quickly. Think of the great European intellectual writers of the mid-20th century—Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hermann Hesse. Their ideas were the heartbeat of a generation. Today, can you name a single European writer with that kind of global cultural pull? That tide, too, has ebbed.
And it’s not just modern times. Read the old biblical texts and you’ll see the same pattern. Small cities, powerful kings, whole kingdoms—they rose and fell. Nothing remains the same.
I suppose when one reaches a certain age, you begin to notice how rapidly things slip away. One moment they are here, shining brightly; the next, they’re gone.
But here’s the other side of it: as some things disappear, new things arrive. The world doesn’t stand still. In False Bay, while the fishing boats may be silent, the beaches are kept clean, the tidal pools sparkle, and the City of Cape Town employs teams of people to maintain the coast. It’s a different kind of life, but still a sign of care and renewal.
That’s how it goes: the present is shaped by what has passed, and it becomes the future. Movement. Always movement.
And as for those Springbok fans? Don’t worry. They’ll be back—glued to their TV screens next week when South Africa takes on Australia at Cape Town Stadium. Some things disappear for a moment, but they always return.
