You always need to know where to get cheap foam rubber. Bagraims was full of it, along with strange bits of clothing, dishware, piles of notepads; stuff that somehow fell off the boat and into their shop. And mountains of foam rubber that they would cut to size on a massive bandsaw.
We left Cape Town in 1986, and returned 20 years later. Big box retailers were beginning to squeeze out the Momand Pops, but Bagraims was still there. Mostly foam now, although there were still piles of notebooks for sale, and bags of popcorn. It was an enormous comfort to me, after so long, to know exactly where to go, and to see the same people working there.
Last time I was there, to look for the foam for the fortune cookie hats, there were signs posted about a looming closure. The signs in Bagraims are all so old that I didn't really take much notice...until I was at the til and joked about it. Yes, we're closing at the end of February. Why? The owners are tired. I guess they would be, after many many many years of foam rubber vapors. I won't know where to get those lovely thin thin sheets of foam rubber, and I will miss the cozy hominess of that room full of foam.