Love Books is able to survive in a suburb that is constantly evolving due to its relationship with its customers and members of the community.
A faded Afrikaans quote from Réney Warrington’s book, Oktober, has lain on the doorstep of one of Johannesburg’s oldest suburb’s remaining independent bookshops, Love Books, since 2012, emphasising a habitation that was once predominately Afrikaans.
ENTRANCE: A customer step’s over the quote from Réney Warrington’s book, Oktober.
Love Books is situated in Melville’s Bamboo Lifestyle Centre and has its front door a metre away from the bustling Rustenburg Road. Situated at the corner of the centre, Love Books’ main entrance stands out due to the pink and red cut-out stickers on the windows and the display of books’ visibility from the road.
The structure of the shop allows for one to see through to the back of shop and catch a glimpse of the sunshine in the courtyard upon entering by the front door. Another two entrances allow for visitors of the centre to explore something new after having their hair cut or something to eat at one of the centre’s eateries, the Service Station, for example.
The inter-leading doors between Love Books and Service Station makes it easy for customers to stroll in and out. The wooden tiles leading into Love Books tell the story of many who have walked through, while the shop itself looks the same as it did nine years ago. The majority of traffic that flows into Love Books is made up of Service Station customers and one cannot help but wonder whether the footsteps leading into Love Book would be fewer without the presence of their neighbour.
GENRE: One of many embroidered signs hangs on a bookshelf of non-fiction books.
It’s not every day that one comes across an independent bookshop. The existence of Love Books is unique as it is one of two independent bookshops in the area and one of few in Johannesburg. The survival of the bookshop in an artsy and evolving Melville goes unnoticed as almost every customer that walks in has a relationship with owner, Kate Rogan, or one of her three employees. The way in which the bookshop values itself on the relationship it has with its customers allows for its survival in a time when a hardcopy book is not always an individual’s first option.
As the front door creeks open, a carefully selected range of books strikes the eyes of a well-dressed, middle-class lady. Books are arranged by genres which are labelled by signs embroidered by shop manager, Anna Joubert. Shelves from floor to ceiling and tables both high and low are bursting under the weight of unread books. Posters of books and picture frames relating to authors occupy the spaces on the walls and unopened boxes of books hide under shelves. Gift cards, colouring-in books and notepads fill the gaps. Dolls hang from the ceiling and music softly plays while the chatter from neighbouring conversations seeps in through the inter-leading doors.
ENTREPRENEUR: Kate Logan, owner of Love Books, glances at one of the many books on her shop’s shelves.
A confused-looking individual rushes in through the front door looking to buy wine only to find out that for the past nine years the space has been occupied by a bookshop. She exits the shop as fast as she walked in.
A young girl dressed in a multi-coloured striped towel, matching costume and flipflops is reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling. Another lady, dressed in her gym-gear, walks in only to realise she has used the wrong door and does not want a book but a cup of coffee from the Service Station.
Love Books was started by Jaci Jenkins and Kate Rogan on June 8, 2009. Rogan remembers the days before her shop’s doors opened and how her home lounge was filled with boxes of books waiting to be shelved. Having started 11 years after Service Station came into business she says that having the eatery next door has helped her business a lot and that the inter-leading door brings out the idea of books and coffee.
“When we started out the majority of our traffic came from the Service Station, well a big portion of it did, and now we can stand on our own completely. So, I do not mind having people using our doors to get there as we needed their doors to get people here,” she says.
READ: Saaleha Idress Bamjee’s poetry collection is selected by a customer.
Louw Kotze, the manager of Service Station and customer of Love Books, says that he has a great working relationship with Rogan and her bookshop. “We fill in each other very well. I enjoy our shops being linked as our customers go there and their customers come here,” he says.
Rogan has managed to keep the doors of her bookshop open through her entrepreneurial mind-set of running a business. The 52-year-old has always been a part of the book industry in one way or another. Before opening Love Books, Rogan produced Talk Radio 702’s Book Show from 2004 to 2009, which she says helped increase her book knowledge and understanding of the market. She was also a commissioning editor at Zebra Press, which became a part of Struik, where she worked on “loads of interesting books”. She prides herself on her shop’s book collection which she has individually handpicked. She buys books directly from their publishers and regularly meets with book representatives in order to keep updated with the new books that are coming out
Louw Kotze, the manager of Service Station and customer of Love Books, says that he has a great working relationship with Rogan and her bookshop. “We fill in each other very well. I enjoy our shops being linked as our customers go there and their customers come here,” he says.
Rogan has managed to keep the doors of her bookshop open through her entrepreneurial mind-set of running a business. The 52-year-old has always been a part of the book industry in one way or another. Before opening Love Books, Rogan produced Talk Radio 702’s Book Show from 2004 to 2009, which she says helped increase her book knowledge and understanding of the market. She was also a commissioning editor at Zebra Press, which became a part of Struik, where she worked on “loads of interesting books”. She prides herself on her shop’s book collection which she has individually handpicked. She buys books directly from their publishers and regularly meets with book representatives in order to keep updated with the new books that are coming out.
Most of the books in Rogan’s shop are written by local authors as Love Books honours itself on its support of local authors. Before making room on loaded bookshelves, selected books are welcomed into the shop through book launches which have been taking place since Love Books opened its doors and have always been catered by the Service Station. To date, their biggest book launch has been Suzelle’s DIY: The Book by Ari Kruger. Rogan explains that over time more launches have occurred and, as a result, they have become “an integral part of [the] business”.
Saleeha Idrees Bamjee, a South African author, is a regular attendee of book launches at Love Books. She says, “It’s helpful that [Love Books] is in a complex with popular eateries, I’m sure they benefit from the foot traffic and vice versa … Many people would rather support a small independent business than a franchise, especially one that makes an effort to be inclusive and on the pulse.”
Bamjee had her first published poetry collection launched in the shop in September this year. “To have my own (book launch) take place there felt like a graduation, a culmination of a fulfilling creative journey,” says the 35-year-old.
Bamjee has her own book on the shelves but she admits to being a Kindle reader as it allows her to download books quicker than she can get to a book shop. She believes that technology is affecting the way in which individuals interact with hardcopy books as well as bookshops.
“Some people do only Kindle, some people do only books, some people do a combination and it is okay for now,” says Rogan.
Joubert, who manages the shop on weekdays and spends time reading with her family on weekends, says that customers unashamedly come into the shop and admit to having downloaded a book on their electronic device. She says there is no judgement on how individuals prefer to read and that some of the customers who have downloaded a book come in looking for a hardcopy.
Amanda Mitchell, another Love Books employee who works on Sundays, says that with the evolution of technology not many people read anymore. “It’s the parents raising their children to read rather than have all the other available technologies and interests who come here,” she says.
Another effect on Love Books is the competition that the bookshop has with the country’s leading book chains. Rogan explains that she is not always able to compete with book chains as she does not have the mass market that a shop such as Exclusive Books has. She may sell items other than books, but her market is not looking for anything more. She says that she can put the books and items Exclusive Books has on their shelves, but they are not going to go anywhere.
“I offer a sort of curated selection of stuff. I think people come in here, like my customers like coming in here, because they know that what is on the shelf has been thoughtfully chosen and they can kind of rely on that part of their decision making around buying the book,” she says.
Customers of Love Books are mostly made up of Melville’s community members, but others have come from all corners of Johannesburg, with the odd customer being a tourist from a foreign country.
Community members consist of residents, students from universities nearby such as the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) and the University of Johannesburg (UJ), individuals from neighbouring suburbs as well as those who work nearby. The proximity and offerings of the suburb to its neighbours is inviting for all and Rogan is both proud and pleased that her bookshop has been able to survive the evolving environment of what has become an artsy Melville.
Having had two bookshops close down since 2009, one of which Rogan signed a petition to keep open, she is confident that her shop will continue to survive. As one of two remaining independent bookshops in the suburb, Rogan believes that, “Melville is a great place to have a bookshop because we are really part of the community, and it’s a community that is interested in reading and supportive of authors”.
MAP: A map of the surrounding entrepreneurial hubs in Melville. Created by: Mary Sayegh
The shop has individuals, who are mostly middle to upper-class, coming through the doors on a daily basis. The age of these individuals ranges from as mature as 99-years-old to as young as 9-week-old babies in strollers having their parents purchasing them their first book.
While some individuals use the main entrance as a gate-way to the Service Station or others stroll in through the back door that links to the centre’s hairdresser, most individuals come in to see what book they can get their hands on. Most individuals who enter show some interest in what the bookshop has to offer and although a purchase may not be made on every visit, a conversation between an employee and an individual is usually had.
Rachel Silber, an employee of Love Books who works on Saturdays, believes that the shop has been able to keep its doors open due to its reputation in the community and word-of-mouth attracting new customers.
The full-time Wits BA student does not think that everyone who is a customer at the Service Station knows that there is a bookshop right next to them but having the inter-leading doors allows for them to discover something new.
“We (at Love Books) like to think that we are a portal to knowledge and enlightenment for people who walk through the doors of Service Station,” says the 19-year-old.
Nicole Fritz, a long-standing customer of Love Books for the past five years, regularly visits the centre with her husband and two children. They frequently have their Sunday breakfast at the Service Station as it allows for their kids to come into Love Books and let their imaginations run wild.
The basket of easily-accessible books for young children, who are wanting to read on their own in the shop, allows for any child to come in and enjoy the books. The basket is piled with books that have been used by children over the years and is inclusive of all genres from fairy-tales and fantasy to fables and myths.
Fritz’s kids rush into Love Books in their Sunday best to pick up whatever they can get their hands on. Although they are at an age where they cannot read, they can be seen opening books at a rapid rate and staring as if to make up their own narrative just by looking at the illustrations inside their selected book.
ENTRANCE: The inter-leading doors between Love Books and the Service Station.
Nicole Fritz, a long-standing customer of Love Books for the past five years, regularly visits the centre with her husband and two children. They frequently have their Sunday breakfast at the Service Station as it allows for their kids to come into Love Books and let their imaginations run wild.
The basket of easily-accessible books for young children, who are wanting to read on their own in the shop, allows for any child to come in and enjoy the books. The basket is piled with books that have been used by children over the years and is inclusive of all genres from fairy-tales and fantasy to fables and myths.
Fritz’s kids rush into Love Books in their Sunday best to pick up whatever they can get their hands on. Although they are at an age where they cannot read, they can be seen opening books at a rapid rate and staring as if to make up their own narrative just by looking at the illustrations inside their selected book.
READ: Used children’s books are ready to be read by any child who walks into the shop.
Fritz explains that her family’s attraction to Love Books comes from the shop’s selection of titles and friendly staff. “It’s got a very different feel from like an Exclusive Books. We’ve got to know the people who are here and the staff are incredibly patient with my children so that’s a big thing.”
Maintaining good relationships with customers is an integral part of Love Book’s future. Every employee explains that being interested in people and what they are looking for is the reason customers return.
Joubert explains that she has journeyed with customers just by getting to know them. “There’s regulars that I have seen dating each other, breaking up and then asking me to witness their prenuptials and now they are parents of two-year-olds,” she says.
The journey of Love Books is far from over. Rogan sees herself running the shop for years to come and believes that being in a destination centre with no passing trade emphasises the importance of inter-leading doors drawing people into her shop. Her entrance will remain open to all customers of the Bamboo Centre while the words on the front stoep slowly fade away.
FEATURED IMAGE: Kate Logan, owner of Love Books, glances at one of the many books on her shop’s shelves. Photo: Mary Sayegh.
The tuk-tuk industry in Melville has been bustling since 2010. With the entry of competitors such as Uber and Taxify, some drivers are getting creative in order to carve out a living for themselves and their families.
TWO BLUE blue tuk-tuks are parked at the back of the Melville Spar parking lot on Main Road. The harsh October sun beats down, transforming the small three-wheeled vehicles into something resembling a baking oven. Innocent Mbonane sits inside one of the tuk-tuks, sweat dripping down his face while he waits for his next customer.
An elderly woman walks towards Mbonane and his colleague, Nicholas Masondo. She holds a walking stick in one hand, and gingerly pushes a trolley filled with the groceries she’s just bought, with the other. Mbonane rushes to her aid and pushes the trolley the rest of the way.
PATIENCE: The heat wears Innocent Mbonane down as he waits for his next customer in the Melville Spar parking lot.
Vuyelwa Fikeni patiently waits while Mbonane loads her groceries into his tuk-tuk. She’s radiating with an infectious, happy energy. Just before she climbs into the vehicle she says, “I have been using tuk-tuks for years!” Mbonane climbs behind the wheel and whisks her off to The Village complex where she lives in Westdene, a mere four-minute drive from the Spar – too far for her to walk with her groceries, but close enough to use a tuk-tuk.
A few minutes later, Mbonane returns, carrying another passenger. Bridget Kamangira has been using tuk-tuks as a fast means of transport for five months to travel between work and home. “Uber is expensive but tuk-tuks are cheaper,” she says.
Mbonane drops Kamangira, parks his tuk-tuk next to that of Masondo’s and again waits for his next customer. He says that this can take up to an hour as he settles into the spacious back seat of his blue tuk-tuk and takes a sip of water. Mbonane has been driving for e-TukTuk for two years and encouraged Masondo to join as a driver three months ago.
Tuk-tuks hail from South East Asia and first came to South Africa in the early 2010s, as reported by the Gauteng Tourism Authority. They have been part of Melville’s fabric since e-TukTuk was started in 2013 by a resident and restaurant owner in Melville, Deon Fourie.
David Thorpe is a director of e-TukTuk along with Fourie. He says, “Deon is a very community minded guy who loves Melville and the surroundings. He and a group of people looked at ways of kind of improving security. It got to a stage where the students weren’t really going out. [They] looked at different opportunities and saw that maybe a tuk-tuk in the local community could be a cheap and efficient mode of transport to drive the students around. So they managed to get a hold of one tuk-tuk and launched it, and it was a massive.”
HOLD ON! Tuk-tuk driver, Ali Muyita, spends his days ferrying strangers and friends in his yellow three-wheeled vehicle around Melville, Johannesburg.
Tuk-tuks differ from e-hailing services in that they travel short distances. Thorpe explains: “Similar to a taxi association where they will get a route, we have an area. So Melville in the middle and it’s a seven-kilometre radius.” The drivers charge a base fare, often of around R20, which is paid in cash, and add to that depending on the distance travelled. Customers can either flag down a tuk-tuk on the street or call a driver to come pick them up – either by calling a call centre, or by calling the driver directly, depending on the type of tuk-tuk the client decides to use.
A few metres up the road from the Melville Spar parking lot, at the corner of 2nd Avenue and Main Road, three yellow and black tuk-tuks are parked. Their drivers are standing against the wall of the corner shop, deep in conversation. Like the e-TukTuk drivers, they also await the call of their next customers.
BRRR: A tuk-tuk speeds up 7th Street, Melville to pick up a new customer.CHARGED UP: A tuk-tuk driver keeps his phone close in order not to miss any call.
Ali Muyita is an asylum seeker from Uganda who first started driving a tuk-tuk in 2013. Although Muyita essentially offers the same service as that offered by Mbonane, he is an independent tuk-tuk driver, registered under the Auckland Park Tuk-Tuk Association (ATTA). Started in 2015 and headed by a chairperson, a vice-chairperson and a secretary, ATTA has around 60 drivers operating mostly around Melville and Auckland Park.
Chairperson of ATTA William Maitsa says the drivers pay a joining fee of R500 and a monthly fee of R300 to the ATTA. “This money is used when someone has an accident. We will try and assist him as a group.”
In reality, however, Muyita says he pays around R4 500 in fees each month. He is also a member of the Faraday Taxi Association (FTA) and the Johannesburg Community Taxi Association (JCTA) and has to pay a rental fee to the owner of the tuk-tuk that he rents.
According to Maitsa, the taxi drivers in the FTA marginalise the ATTA drivers. “They don’t want us to prosper. They keep on fighting with us. We give them money to cool them down.” He says the drivers also pay money to be part of the JCTA in order to use their routes.
Maitsa says when a driver signs up to ATTA, they can seek out tuk-tuk owners to rent from. According to Thorpe, because the tuk-tuk market in Johannesburg has been flooded, the price of a new tuk-tuk has increased from R30 000 in 2013 to R52 000 in 2018. As such, many drivers aren’t able to buy their own tuk-tuks and instead rent from the tuk-tuk owners. Maitsa, who owns four tuk-tuks himself, says, “The owners buy tuk-tuks from a company based in Northgate. We buy them new. However, if someone comes across a second-hand one, they’ll buy it.”
Getting into the tiny vehicle, it wobbles a little from side to side, giving rise to the tiniest fear that it may tumble onto its side. Inside, it is surprisingly spacious. On one side of the tuk-tuk, the plastic cover is zipped closed but on the other side, it is tied back, allowing the wind to sweep through, making the passenger think the driver is driving faster than he really is. The tuk-tuk feels strangely safe as the tar road zips by, nothing between you and the precarious edge of the tearing black seat.
The joys of riding in a tuk-tuk on a hot summer’s day can change as quickly as a Highveld thunderstorm kicks up. One minute, an e tuk-tuk driver is parked in the Spar parking lot and the next, a cloud breaks in the sky above. Rain slashes down, drenching the driver within seconds. He pulls away and drives into the parking lot below, in search of shelter. There he pulls over, the dim lights on this flimsy tuk-tuk struggling to shine while confined between the concrete slabs.
On 4thAvenue, the flappy sides of a yellow and green tuk-tuk fly angrily. Even the side that was closed lets loose – offering no protection to the driver who has abandoned his vehicle. A lone tuk-tuk can be seen hastily driving up and down Main Road but, for the most part, the tuk-tuks have lost their appeal at the thought of assaulting rain and wind beating the back seat of a moving tuk-tuk.
Muyita says no two days are the same, and you never know how many customers to expect, but business decreases during the winter months. The fear of the cold nibbling away at your face and body is formidable indeed.
Maitsa was a tuk-tuk driver himself but left to start driving for Taxify three months ago. “I recently left to begin driving Taxify but I’m still managing [ATTA]. I just wanted to up a grade.”
Muyita says he has seen around a 50% drop in his earnings since Uber and Taxify started operating in South Africa in 2013 and 2016 respectively. “When you’re not a citizen you don’t have a choice. I do want to drive for Uber and Taxify but I don’t have enough paperwork. Right now I’m using my driver’s licence from my country.”
According to the Taxify country manager for South Africa, Gareth Taylor, in order to sign up for Taxify, a driver needs a valid driver’s licence and a professional driving permit (PrDP). “We do not accept foreign licences,” he says. While Taxify drivers come from a variety of industries within South Africa, he adds, “We have not seen a substantially high increase of tuk-tuk drivers come onto the Taxify platform.”
Muyita puts in 14 hours of work on an average day and works six-and-a-half days a week. Despite this, he is always a friendly, outgoing guy with a broad smile. He works hard to send money home to his wife who lives in Uganda. “When you have a family it means you’re committed. You have to support them. You do your best, that’s why you work long hours.”
As a Taxify driver, Maitsa says there aren’t any issues between Uber or Taxify drivers and tuk-tuk drivers. However, like Uber and Taxify drivers, the tuk-tuk drivers experience problems with metered-taxi drivers. “In 2016 we had such problems whereby one of our tuk-tuks got burned completely. There are instances whereby if a tuk-tuk is driving customers close to the metered-taxi guys, they can harass and deny you from fetching your customers.”
Maitsa says they don’t have any issues with the e-TukTuk drivers as they’re essentially providing the same service.
FAMILY MAN: Ali Muyita works 14 hours a day, nearly seven days a week, to send R1 000 a month to his wife back home in Uganda.
At the Melville Spar parking lot, Masondo says things are not so rosy between e-TukTuk and ATTA drivers. “We have licences and PrDPs for driving, [while the independent tuk-tuk drivers] use fake ones.”
Thorpe says e-TukTuk needs an operating licence in order to legally put their drivers on the road. In order to obtain this licence from the City of Johannesburg, they need to have an office, a call centre, a certain area of operation and they have to submit their pricing per kilometre.
Howard Dembovsky is the chairperson of the Justice Project South Africa, a non-governmental, non-profit organisation dedicated to the improvement of road traffic law and its enforcement. He concurs with Thorpe that you need a professional driving permit (PrDP) when transporting members of the public for financial gain. On top of this according to Thorpe, tuk-tuk drivers currently need to have a motorbike licence and they need to display a tuk-tuk licence on their windscreen.
Thorpe says they have a fairly good relationship with the independent tuk-tuk drivers because many of the drivers used to work for e-TukTuk. Owner-drivers would pay a rental to use a tuk-tuk each month while paying it off. “The owner-drivers started to pay off the vehicles and they had to pay to use our licence. One driver left and said ‘No, I’m not going to rent the vehicle out daily’. It started off as one driver and, to be perfectly honest, we weren’t particularly that worried. Then literally overnight one went into two, into three, into four. All of the sudden the market, to where we are now, is flooded.” Whereas ATTA has around 60 registered drivers, e-TukTuk went from having 16 tuk-tuks to having around eight tuk-tuks in its fleet today.
Thorpe says they have tried numerous channels to address this problem. “We went through many channels to get rid of the illegals – the police, the City of Johannesburg, the transport department, the chiefs of the police – and everybody always said, ‘Yes, we must clean this up, we must sort this out’, and something I can never put my finger on is how it never happened.”
COMMUNITY: Tuk-tuk and motorbike drivers relax on 2nd Avenue in between ferrying customers around Melville.
Spokesperson for the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD), Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar, says the tuk-tuk industry in Melville hasn’t been a problem. “We don’t have a record of accidents. If there were, it was very minor. From that point of view, we have no problem with the tuk-tuk industry.”
Minnaar says the licensing of tuk-tuks is the responsibility of the Department of Transport. He adds that tuk-tuk drivers will only get pulled over by JMPD officers when they’re driving recklessly, but according to him, there haven’t been any reports of tuk-tuks ignoring a red light or a stop sign. When the drivers do get pulled over, Minnaar says, “We only check if they have driver’s licences.”
Despite Minnaar’s praise for tuk-tuk drivers, the owners and tuk-tuk drivers operating within the legal framework are concerned that the operation of tuk-tuks without the necessary licences may have devastating implications on the industry and, ultimately, their livelihoods.
At the end of the day, each player is trying one’s best to forge out a living. As Thorpe says, “The driver trying to make his way, the call centre agent, me trying to make my way – there are many different people along the way just trying to make it.”
While he is concerned about the job security of his drivers and the future of his small business, drivers such as Muyita worry about their livelihoods and far away families. His tuk-tuk is his only means to earn an income. He believes he doesn’t have another option and is simply doing the best he can with the resources available to him.
FEATURED IMAGE: Tuk-tuks parked on Melville’s 2nd Avenue on a quiet Friday afternoon. Photo: Sanet Oberholzer.
Melville’s 4th Avenue has had its share of the hustle and bustle of shops opening and closing, but the barbershop and the man who owns it tell a different story. The barbershop is a marvel that has seen the changes of the Melville landscape but has remained as it is, where it is, for 48 years.
WALKING ALONG 4th Avenue in Melville, a car races past me, whizzing into the oblivion that thrives in the city life. On the side of the road, a car washer smothers a red Fiat in soap bubbles as the sun dries the soapy water away before he can wipe it down. Across the road I notice a small shop in between a framer and a Lebanese restaurant.
TIMELESS: Fred Moss is Melville’s friendly face and owner of the Scala hair salon.
Scissors are cut into the shop’s gate and the old rustic feel of the windows and signage tell me that the shop has been in existence for a while. Peering through the words written on the window, I spot an older man in a white coat. His hands working precisely to get that perfect cut for the grey-haired man sitting in his chair.
The Melville barbershop, Scala, has been in existence for 48 years and is one of the oldest existing shops in the Melville area. The hair salon was originally part of the Scala corner, an establishment at the corner of 4th Avenue and 7th Street Melville, which included a bakery, supermarket and bioscope. The barbershop was passed down from father to son. Little did the young 17-year-old know that the shop would exist for a lifetime and that he would become part of the tapestry of the Melville suburb.
Entering the small shop, I am met with a welcoming smile. The man in the white coat introduces himself as Fred Moss. His wrinkled, red-faced facial features tell tales of a long-winded road; a journey of where he is now. His calloused fingers seem rough with years of experience and his piercing blue eyes peer into the soul of every person who walks through the salon’s doors.
“I hated working here,” Fred tells me one afternoon. For Fred, becoming a barber was not his first dream, he had wanted to become a sign writer as he loved drawing. Unfortunately, Fred doesn’t have much time to draw today as he did back in the day.
The 65-year-old didn’t have it easy when he was younger. At 17, he was forced by his father to leave school and work in the barbershop. At the time, the shop was owned by Fred’s father, George Moss, and Fred’s brother-in-law, Piet Wessels. He spent his days cleaning up the shop.
In 1970, Fred joined the army for three months. That was when he realised that “In for a penny, in for a pound” (meaning, if you’re going to do something you should see it through till the end and put your all into it) and reconciled himself with being in the business.
During the time, he had no choice as the army was an obligation for every white man, once they had turned 18 in South Africa. At the time, under apartheid, Melville was a white suburb. Fred’s brother-in-law had left the business and Fred’s father had told him that he had to either take over the business or the barbershop would close. In 1971, Fred took out a loan and bought the business for R900, an investment that he is reaping the rewards of today.
After Fred took over the business, he became a master at cutting hair and completed his apprenticeship, in a year. He also found it hard to fulfil his obligations in relation to the 10-year contract with the army. In 1974, he managed to amend his contract with the army so that he was commissioned to cut hair and became known as the army barber.
VINTAGE: These red chairs line one side of Fred’s shop. He bought them at a bargain price from the army and believes that they give his shop an authentic barber feel.
The carved chairs that line the left side of his store are a relic from his army days. Fred grins as he tells me, “I stole them legally.” When the army was getting rid of the chairs, Fred asked whether he could buy them for R150 each. The general at the time refused his request at first, believing that the chairs were worth way more than that, but Fred didn’t back down and eventually got the chairs for what he believes was a ‘steal’. “Even if someone came today and offered me R20 000 for each chair, I would not sell them, they are part of me and the barbershop,” Fred says.
Asked about what made him fall in love with the job eventually, Fred says that the people with whom he interacted made him realise his passion. “I haven’t actually got customers, I have friends. They all share very personal things with me. Sometimes I feel like I am a psychologist rather than a barber,” Fred chuckles.
George and Piet had to take out surety for Fred in case he encountered any debt while running the business.
“There have been ups and downs in the business and some months are more difficult than others,” Fred says.
When times get tough, customers cut down on luxuries, says Fred. A haircut is one of those luxuries, but Fred says that his customers tell him that things are a bit tight for the month, so they will return the following month.
Surprisingly, Fred has never spent a cent on an advertisement. All his clients have come from word of mouth because of how well-known he has become in the Melville community. He says that over the past few years, he has been privileged to gain traction from being featured on the popular South African television show, 7de Laan. Scala is also often hired out for companies and brands to shoot their advertisements in, and from there people want to come and see the famous Scala barber.
In the 1970s monthly rental for the barbershop was R45. Today Fred pays R10 000, which Fred says has come under the economic pressures of the times. But he says that it is fair considering that the price for a haircut has also gone up. Fred used to charge 35c for an adult’s haircut in the 1970s. Today he charges R100.
FAMILIAR: Fred sits on the steps leading into his shop as he observes the bustle of 4th Avenue. Despite his age, he has no plans to retire anytime soon, saying that he has put his whole life into the business.
The 65-year-old talks about how he has adapted to what goes on around him, but has never changed the salon. For Fred, he wanted to keep the authenticity of the barbershop and never felt the need to change the decor in or outside the shop.
“Never mind, I’ll find someone like you…”, singer Adele whispers in the background as I look around the barbershop. Where the ceiling meets the walls, are hanging caps – blue, red, green, South African. Three old-fashioned barber chairs are lined up on one side of the shop, while on the right-hand side are the old, magical, red chairs.
They look as if when you sit on them, they would transform into time machines, shooting you back to a time when hippies were a whole generation. Nothing has changed inside the salon. But looking out on 7th Street, a Chevy Camaro bounces down the street with Michael Jackson’s “The way you make me feel, you really turn me on…” blasting from its speakers.
STREETWISE: If you visit Melville, you are sure to spot James, who is the only car guard on 4th Avenue. He and Fred have a family-like relationship and James is grateful for Fred’s presence in the neighbourhood.
I approached the car washer after I had seen him enter Fred’s shop multiple times. James Mokhalinyane seems a lot younger than his 33 years. The red bucket-cap that has swallowed his face hides his big eyes and eerie smile. His hands tell tales of a hard worker, finding whatever jobs he can to survive, on a tar that has adopted him as part of the road signs.
James has been hustling on 7th Street for more than 20 years and has a bond with Fred that one can only describe as being part of the family. “To me, [Fred] is like my father. When he has some jobs at his shop, when I need some money or even when the police come and try to chase me away, he negotiates my stay with them,” a grateful James says.
James says that since he started working in the area there has been a lot of shift and change. “Before it used to be good, now it’s too much clubs and crime,” he says.
Even while the suburb is over-run by students roaming the street, if one stops and listens closely enough, one can hear the hum of the wind or the buzz of sunshine on a hot summer’s day. It is hard to believe that crime has grimly seeped its way into the suburb, destroying the atmosphere that once was.
James invites me to sit on the side of the hot pavement as he tells me about how the businesses that have opened in Melville now don’t know what the people want, and that is why some of them are failing miserably.
“Fred is different,” he says as he allows me the privilege of a grin, “He has his regular customers and he knows what people want. He hasn’t changed a lot over the years and he isn’t like other barbers where you must make an appointment. You can just walk into Fred’s shop at any time and the man is happy to help.”
VIDEO: Fred has been cutting hair for most of his life and says that one has to be an artist in order to cut someone’s hair. Fred has cut hair for four generations of men and will continue to do so until he cannot anymore. He shares some of his tips and techniques he has learnt over the years.
A tall, grey man enters the salon, and greets Fred like an old friend. Taking a seat on one of the shop’s barber chairs, he begins to engage with Fred over the troubles that have recently taken over his life. Fred’s hands work precisely, cutting stray strands and neatening up the fellow’s hair as he listens with intent and offers sound advice.
Brahm Spies, a 70-year-old lawyer, needs no invitation for introductions. “Fred is part of the furniture. He has been cutting my hair for 40 years, back when it was all black,” the gentleman throws his head back as he lets out a roar of laughter.
Brahm is moving to Cape Town in December and is distraught that he might have to change barbers. “I might just fly back to get my hair cut once a month,” Spies says.
A bare-footed older man, Japie Le Roux, pads his way into the shop when he decides to take a seat next to me. He yaps on about how he has known Fred for 48-years and has only ever cut his hair in the comfort of the Scala hair salon.
“I have never had any complaints about Fred, but I would suggest that you don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth,” he and Fred chuckle as they share an inside joke.
For Natasha Hunter, another customer, until five years ago, Melville had been her whole life. St Swithins Avenue is the street that Natasha used to live with her family.
Natasha says that she loved growing up in Melville. “When I was 12 or so, I remember one year for Mardi Gras, that we camped out in Fred’s shop watching the festivities,” she says.
Now 33 years old, Natasha says she was little when her father started taking her to Scala to get her hair cut. As a little girl Natasha was not keen on cutting her hair but with Fred being the barber everything was always a little bit more humorous. “I was so upset, that he then took the hair and put it on my head and said, ‘See, it will stick and grow back,” Natasha recounts the fiasco that took place that first day at Scala.
SNIP, SNIP: Fred attends to a regular customer, Mauritz Cloete. Although Mauritz has only been coming to Scala for two years, he says that Fred has the best expertise of the barbers in the area. He adds that Fred’s prices are good, which keeps him coming back.
Although she has not visited the area for five years, Natasha says it would be disappointing to come to Melville and not see Fred or the barbershop. Hers is a testimony to Fred’s friendliness that has kept Scala going for the 48-years that he has run the business.
According to Natasha, Fred has managed to stay in the area for so long because, “He gets to know his customers on a personal basis, his friendly way with people, and the fact that through thick and thin, he has stuck it out.”
FEATURED IMAGE: Fred Moss is Melville’s friendly face and owner of the Scala hair salon. Photo: Naeemah Dudan.
Melville has long been known to be one of the most popular thrift communities in the City of Johannesburg. A vintage store on the main drag is keeping the tradition alive while still providing a decent livelihood for its owners.
IT IS 10:24 on a bright, sunny Wednesday morning. In front of The Moral Kiosk vintage store on 7th Street, Melville, sits a middle-aged man, cross-legged on a light brown Windsor chair. His long dark-skinned legs are covered by a pair of black skinny jeans, with a silver stainless steel chain hanging from the right side. The look is complemented by a black t-shirt with “Iggy Pops” printed in red letters.
OLD FASHIONED: The Moral Kiosk vintage store owned by Josh Georgiou on Melville’s 7th Street.
He occasionally stands up to greet a passer-by with a grin and an energetic demeanour, displaying intense familiarity with some locals. His punk-rock outfit is fashionably matched with a pair of black boots and accessorised with an unbuttoned black flat cap, fashion items which are not foreign to the style on the hangers inside.
His name is Fundiswa ‘Quiet’ Mngquli, a 54-year-old leather designer who makes and trades leather items ranging from jackets, belts, bags, shoes and vintage clothing from the 1960s to the early 1990s. Mngquli is one of two black entrepreneurs who dabble in the trade of vintage clothing within The Moral Kiosk and has been trading clothes for over 30 years, around Johannesburg.
Working at the same store, is a lean young man easily identified by his black grunge boots often accompanied by black baggy track pants and a fanny pack wrapped across his torso. Kevin Donashe is a 38-year-old vintage clothing entrepreneur who sells denim clothes and clothes which specifically show colours and characteristics from the 1970s to the early 1990s. He has been importing and selling clothes for over a decade.
CLASSICAL: Music vinyls and antique furniture for sale at The Moral Kiosk.
In the soaring temperatures beating down the corner of 7th Street, these two self-employed African entrepreneurs overwhelm and captivate potential clients with acute nostalgia through the sale of vintage clothing items from days gone by. The harvest and trade of second-hand clothing from across borders of South Africa and neighbouring locations is at the heart of the work they do. They are two of the few black men to trade authentic second-hand clothing.
Their retro fashion dealings take place in Melville, a Johannesburg suburb whose approximately 3 355 inhabitants are predominately white. The rest are mostly Africans and a smaller number of coloured, and Asian residents.
This hub of retro fashion is one of the few suburbs characterised by restaurants, coffee shops and clothing stores quilted one next to the other down the street as opposed to the typical shopping complex.
The streets of this ‘bohemian village’, especially 7th Street, are never short of crowds of students from nearby universities and convoys of washed-out yellow and vibrant, red metered taxis. The grey road surface peppered with purple flowers falling from the jacaranda trees, are perpetually obstructed by stationary vehicles outside every establishment.
Vintage style goes beyond the threads of the garments within this store. The four walls of The Moral Kiosk, with a hollow centre occupied by three wooden coffee tables, house a plethora of vintage and antique items which make one almost feel as though one has travelled back in time.
Upon going through the glass door with a wooden frame, the vibe of times past is dominated by the serene sound of late 1980s and early 1990s jazz music, luring customers in.
PRISTINE: Fundiswa Mngquli shows off one of his expensive pieces, a British guard’s jacket.
The shabby looking corner store, painted with a desert sandy colour that is noticeably peeling off, is one of many heritage buildings on Melville’s 7th Street. Its gracefully-aged veranda makes no secret of the fact that the building has been standing for nearly 100 years, having been built in the 1920s. The black corrugated iron roofing, along with the three dark green decorative pillars are typical of the Victorian architecture popular at the time.
This store is owned by Josh Georgiou, a prominent music manager who has managed the late world-renowned South African trumpeter, composer, singer and flugelhornist, Hugh Masekela, for over 10 years. Georgiou has also worked with the likes of Blak Jaks, Bye Beneco, Urban Village and Desmond and the Tutus.
In selecting the store, Georgiou wanted to combine a number of elements which are his favourite and create an inviting space for people who fancy “coffee, music and fashion all at the same time,” he says. Most importantly, however, is the decision to allow entrepreneurs of different backgrounds to operate their businesses in a permanent place other than a market which does not guarantee a distinguished place of trade.
VIDEO: Exploring elite thrifting on 7th Street.
“Quiet [Mngquli] is an old friend I’ve known for over 30 years,” says Georgiou. When Mngquli left his previous store in Parkhurst to trade in local markets, Georgiou suggested that Mngquli’s “stuff should be in a permanent space where people can come back”.
At the front of the store is a cluster of hanging leather jackets of bright and dark colours. Next to them are trousers that emit old-fashioned vibes. Just behind the rails are two tall mannequins dressed in British guards’ blazers that are hard to miss because of their bright lipstick red colour.
These are special garments which Mngquli purchased at Camden Town in London approximately 12 years ago. Although the jackets were somewhat costly, going for 150 British pounds at the time, he did not seem to mind. Unique fashion items come first.
“These are serious pieces. I had to buy all four when I saw them, and the thing about them is that they are specific and unique. You don’t find them anywhere else in South Africa,” he exclaims with a smile and wide-open eyes while pointing at the garments in question. According to Mngquli, two of the four blazers were bought by a film company in Hyde Park. He insists that he will not sell the remaining two for anything less than R8 500.
Mngquli’s love of working with clothing began decades ago, in 1984. He fell in love with leather because of the punk-rock/ biker movement. This is an era during which punk-rock was the “in thing” and black South Africans who dared to be different, gliding away from the typical pantsula culture and style found a sub-culture whose fashion was nothing short of bravery, uniqueness and provocative statements.
The father of three came to Johannesburg from the Eastern Cape in the 1980s. He came with his cousin, Mike Nkosi, and together they sought jobs for survival. This was a period in which prospects for employment back home were bleak. In apartheid South Africa, the two black men defied the odds and proudly experimented and fell in love with the biker and punk-rock culture.
The ‘Godfathers of the punk-movement’, as they refer to themselves, learnt how to make leather jackets, belts, shoes and bags for themselves. Those around them loved their look and would urge them to make and sell to them as well. This led to the Mngquli, with the help of his cousin, making these items on a professional scale and availing them to clients.
The majority of Mngquli’s customers were local and foreign white people at markets, especially the Johannesburg Market Theatre. He made shoes called ‘winky-pickys’, chin-high boots with thick rubber soles. He sold them at the only market in the city back then and also travelled to markets in Cape Town and Durban with his cousin.
“People knew who we were and that made it difficult to sell in Apartheid South Africa but we didn’t care because we were fighting apartheid in a different way,” says Nkosi.
Due to popular demand, “…Fundi [Mngquli] and myself learnt how to sew clothing at a young age, not long after we arrived in Johannesburg in the 80s. We even travelled around Europe together to buy clothes and sold them here at home,” he adds.
After years of working and owning stores together, the cousins split in 2002 when Mngquli decided to open a store in Parkhurst called Second Attitude, which he left for markets, and later, The Moral Kiosk. Nkosi owns his own store in Hyde Park where he also sells clothes of a similar style.
Donashe, who was also born in the Eastern Cape, at a small town called Qoboqobo (Keiskammahoek), started gaining interest in fashion from the age of 15 and has always loved “keeping up a good image” he says. The history of fashion, especially that of the 1970s and 1980s, is what sparked his interest in clothes, especially the uniqueness and statement those clothes make in today’s modern era.
The 38-year-old left his hometown and was Johannesburg bound in 2009, six years after both his parents died. He left his younger sister behind with their aunt and came to explore his interest in fashion through the work of collecting, importing and reselling vintage clothing. Despite working as a restaurant waiter and an assistant at a Chinese printing store whose location he has a vague memory of, the father of three started buying and selling clothes at markets as well until he also found his way to The Moral Kiosk in 2018.
VINTAGE: Clothing rails outside The Moral Kiosk.
The image of thrifting has traditionally been that of an old woman who has been defeated by the urges of hoarding and reluctantly donates to nearby stores and charities.
Extreme cases even involve “collecting items ranging from old picture frames, screws, coffee-stained paper as majority old white people do in Uruguay” giggles Donashe’s colleague, Nicola Feinburg, while gently bopping her head side-to-side in response to the calming jazz music in the background. This may or may not be the case with the clothes that land in Donashe’s hands.
The retro clothing fan and part-time writer of religious and nail-biting apocalyptic fiction, gets his clothing supply from a man whom he refuses to identify. The ‘man’ sources a lot of the items from different parts of the world such as South America and Europe.
With a shamelessly persuasive tongue, Donashe does the extraordinary. He negotiates with random people in the street who are dressed in a clothing item that he sees fit to be traded in his business. Rest assured that in most cases he wins.
“I don’t usually buy stuff unless if it’s something really nice or I need it. I can approach you there and then and I give you money if I’m crazy about what you are wearing,” he says as his face lights up. Talking about the complexities of picking out items to thrift, Donashe emphasises that, “It’s a skill. It’s not like going to a second-hand store. The rule is to stay away from stuff that you can’t tell is from the 70s, 80s or 90s.”
A pair of Swedish tourists, Mathias Lindstron and Olov Sandberg, are fascinated by the music inside and stop for coffee. “We heard the music from across the street and had to stop by. We spoke to… [Mngquli]… and he’s so fascinating,” says Sandberg.
SECOND HAND: Kevin Donashe inspects one of his newly acquired clothing items to be sold.
Lindstron, who is also a thrifting enthusiast, says, “The clothes are just so interesting and I don’t mind second-hand clothes, apart from underwear,” he giggles, sipping on his coffee which drips onto his half-buttoned khaki shirt with vintage print.
Despite possible hygienic risks, reusing clothes is imperative for a consumer culture that knows no bounds in terms of fashion and its different eras.
“There is enough clothing. The world doesn’t need to recreate,” he adds.
Although thrifting became noticeable only in recent years, Heidi Svendsen, a trend lecturer in visual merchandise at LISOF fashion design school, says that it is nothing new. “Thrifting and selling vintage clothes was done over the years, including the 80s.”
Like many other professions, daunting possibilities remain a threat to the respective operations of Donashe and Mngquli. The former is perpetually terrified by the possibility of having the identity of his source known. He fears that competitors could source from him and sell at a lower price.
Mngquli complains that from the early 2000s, foreign traders started selling a lot of fake leather jackets and won over a lot of clients who do not know the difference between genuine leather and plastic. He lost some of his regular clients to this predicament as well.
He laments that two metres of leather material in Market Street used to cost R600, and he needs five meters to make a complete leather jacket. “It is frustrating to have to spend so much money and time on making a leather jacket only for customers to go and buy the fake ones from Somalians. That’s why I’d rather import my leather jackets [and not] make them,” he says shrugging his shoulders.
Most of Mgquli’s leatherwear makes him a lot more money during the winter season. “I make about R60 000 to R70 000 a month during the winter because a plain leather belt costs R450, while a studded one costs R800.” The leather cowboy boots cost R2 500 a pair, (from what he says would normally cost R8 000 elsewhere). Leather bags range from R850 to R1 400, and R 600 for a leather hat.
A lot of these do not sell when atmospheric temperatures ascend above average, licking the foreheads and limbs of potential victims of heat stroke. Most South African women do not fancy leather pants and skirts as much as Europeans do. It is during this season that he ends up making about R15 000 monthly, arguably still a decent amount in the trade of ‘decades-old’ clothing.
FEATURED IMAGE: Fundiswa Mngquli shows off one of his expensive pieces, a British guard’s jacket. Photo: Phumi Londell Ramalepe.
The pink church with the blue door is one of Melville’s iconic historical sites. The landmark follows the journey of prayers, businesses and an overarching spirit of a building with tales stretching over 115 years.
Placed on a steeply sloping site, in a quiet part of the usually vibrant Melville suburb, the former Church could slightly confuse one about what it currently is. Since its inception over a century ago, the marvel that is the pink building, still stands.
At first glance it is a church, the closer one examines the pink-painted building with a high-pitched roof, it becomes evident that although initially built for the purposes of worship, it is no longer being used for what it was originally intended.
The walk from Auckland Park to the one-story building, situated at the corner of Chatou Road and Landau Terrace is an intriguing and dynamic one as the pace and activity of the area changes.
Initially one is hit with the loud commotion of traffic, businesses and early morning folk making their way to work on Empire Road in Auckland Park. The change in scenery and ambience is evident as one moves further away from Auckland Park and closer to the Pink Church. The calmness and quiet cannot be evaded: fewer cars and people. On this warm summer morning only the green vision of leafy elongated trees and private houses consume people.
Arriving at the Pink Church with its brick-layered paving and white, steel-barred gate, its longevity is displayed by the worn-out white trimmings on its apex rooftop, which are etched with marks that represent wrinkles of this long-standing landmark. Its exterior clearly reveals that, like fine wine the building has matured with age. Fenced by a pink wall, the former church now serves as a print studio to Collin Cole who warmly welcomes me at the entrance.
FROM THE BACK: The north entrance of the Pink Church, on Second Avenue, previously a parking area, the space is now used as an acid room. Photo: Palesa Dlamini
Arriving at the Pink Church with its brick-layered paving and white, steel-barred gate, its longevity is displayed by the worn-out white trimmings on its apex rooftop, which are etched with marks that represent wrinkles of this long-standing landmark. Its exterior clearly reveals that, like fine wine the building has matured with age. Fenced by a pink wall, the former church now serves as a print studio to Collin Cole who warmly welcomes me at the entrance.
Initially, comprising two stands which were later consolidated to stand number 239, the eye–catching structure came into existence in 1903 as the Auckland Park Wesleyan Church. Plans of the space before it came into actuality show that there was never a doubt about what colour to make the place of God as these too show a pink structure to be constructed and it has remained as such.
The pungent smell spawned by conifers which encircle the building infuses the air and is reminiscent of Christmas trees. These saplings, which are a type of pine tree are of great Christian significance as they form part of the religion’s ethos.
The book of Kings in the Old Testament of the holy book, the bible, conveys how Solomon constructed the Lord’s temple using wood from these kinds of conifers. The man of God paved the walls and ceilings of the temple with cedar and used planks of cypress for the floors. The temple had two folding doors made of cypress wood.
FROM THE SIDE: The Pink Church surrounded by leafy trees that extend over the building.
Having housed various types of works during its existence, 25 years later, the place of worship remained as such after it became home to the Melville Auckland Park Hebrew Congregation, as it served as a synagogue. The building’s tradition as a church remained when The Old Apostolic Church of Africa took over it in 1956. Offices have been housed by this establishment. It has been a dwelling to its current owner and has served as an office space for a variety of other businesses.
In glancing at the magnificent creation, one cannot ignore the preservation of the character and church–like atmosphere of the historic stand.
AT WORK: Owner of the Blue Door Print Studio, Collin Cole cleaning one of his prized printers at his studio.
Cole, who is the current occupier of this inviting space, a print maker by profession, distinguished this as the best and most attractive place to utilise for his studio, print-making classes and business.
The 58-year-old blonde-haired man smiles as he welcomes me warmly at the gate of his recently acquired studio.
As he leads me inside the structure, I am greeted by two folding wooden ingresses at the south side of the building. This is now a sunlit interior space where the light is inviting as it fills the high structure from its seven high built arched windows with three on either side of the Pink Church and one just above the main south side entrance. The most noticeable feature is the apex shaped skyline surrounded by a high pitched wooden roof which according to Cole is approximately 12 metres from the floor.
“That skyline is one of my favourite things about this beautiful place. I mean the light from all sides and especially from the skyline is just breath-taking. It is especially good for the kind of work [printing] that we do here,” Cole said.
The room Cole and I stand in previously consisted of what he calls “boring white walls” which the print maker decidedly painted an exuberant red after occupying the space on his 58th birthday on May 25 last year.
Two full-size West African figures guard the short staircase down to his corridor gallery. Further down, to the right of the gallery, is a strong room which the first occupants of the Pink Church, Christian congregants in 1903 used as the church safe.
In sneakers, jeans and t-shirt, Cole takes me on a tour of this exquisite heritage site. The once irreparable wooden floors have been transformed into concrete cement screed and decorated with multiple rainbow colours to add a little bit of class.
With his two year–long lease agreement with his landlord Lebrun Rossouw, Cole has no immediate plans of relocating.
“When I first saw the place it was actually being used as an office by architects Britz and Scholes and I knew I wanted to own it at some point. I was immediately drawn to it because of its classical look, architecture and structure,” Rossouw says.
Rossouw, owner of The Jolly Roger Pub located in Parkhurst, north of Johannesburg saw the former church as the best place for a bachelor such as himself at the time. He lets out a laugh as he explains why a church was the best fit for him.
INSIDE: The former place of worship now carries print works and machinery used to produce them.
“I can’t think of anything more romantic than living in a church. It contrasted the atmosphere I experienced in my pub because when I would come home all I felt was calmness. The romance of a church as a home cannot be put into words,” he said.
Rossouw took ownership of the Pink Church after it had been empty and abandoned for three years.
“It was derelict, had no windows, doors, toilets and was occupied by vagrants,” he explained.
The businessman renovated the distinctive piece of property as he turned what used to be the pulpit area into his private sleeping quarters by erecting a white two-metre-high wall which now boasts the initials B.D in the colour blue, which are a representation of what the building currently is, The Pink Church with a Blue Door. Rossouw proudly speaks of one of his most prized possessions, The Pink Church
“When I first moved in there, there was a mezzanine floor and stairs as well as a conference room which had been and added by Britz and Scholes. I added and changed a lot. I added a kitchen, I extended the entrance so I could use it as a parking space. It now extends closer to the road. I added a garage at the back and I created a bathroom too,” Rossouw said.
Seventeen years subsequent to acquiring the gemstone, Rossouw, following careful consideration and thought explains that he is always open to change.
Having been used as an office from 1978 the Pink Church was occupied by 15 staff members who worked for the architectural firm, Britz and Scholes.
One of the former staff members was 56-year-old, Fiona Garson whose first job was as a junior architect at the firm. Speaking of the building during her time there, in 1988, Garson fondly recalled the interior at the time and the great way owners of the building at the time transformed the building.
A VISION: The brightly painted walls of the building carry the print works of current and former students.
“Britz and Scholes were the owners of the building. It was a nice building. There was an entire mezzanine level and a double volume in the middle. The staff would sit upstairs and everyone had their own alcove to work in,” she says.
After a moment in silence as if travelling back in time to when she was 23 years old [1988], Garson takes a deep breath and continues, “I remember how beautiful it was especially because of the way it was oriented. It had a high volume inside and it was an interesting space to work in because I don’t think a lot of people envisioned the place as an office and not a church.”
According to Garson, her then R2 367 pay check was enough for her to get by as she could pay the rent at her small flat in Yeoville as well as pay for her car.
Garson is currently one of the directors of Cohen and Garson Architects and was part of the team responsible for designing the Wits Art Museum in Braamfontein.
Britz and Scholes sold the building for R400 000 in 1990 to Dug toy (Pty).
When the Melville Auckland Park Hebrew Congregation was formed in the western suburbs of Johannesburg, the Pink Church was purchased by the Jewish community in 1929, more than 20 years after its inception.
During her visit to New York in the Eighties, Rose Norwich, a member of the Jewish community became interested in synagogues in South Africa that had been closed down. The now 97-year old qualified architect, who was a Wits student, wrote part of her thesis on the Pink Church. Although her memory is slightly slipping, she tries hard to think back to when she visited the building, as she scratches her fluffy grey hair.
“It was a pretty little building. It was attractive and it captured the essence of the 1900s. It wasn’t big and great, but it was attractive,” says the 97-year-old.
Looking at her old plans of the building and comparing them to the ones I have obtained, Norwich thoughtfully says, “It’s amazing that everyone who has owned it has changed it in some way, maybe that’s what makes this building so interesting. I am almost as old as it actually.”
The National Heritage Resources Act, 25 of 1999 states that structures such as the Pink Church, which are older than 60 years may not have any of its part exterior demolished by any person without a permit issued by the Provincial Heritage Resources Authority Gauteng.
“As far as I know this refers to the exterior of the building. That is why a lot of the demolishing that I did was done to the interior,” Rossouw explains.
Across the road from the Lucky Bean Guesthouse on First Avenue, the Pink Church is also surrounded by private residences, one of which is to its right, formerly known as stand 51 and was utilised as a dwelling place for the synagogue’s rabbi in 1934, after the Jewish congregation built a small house comprising of two bedrooms and a kitchen.
Owner of the guesthouse on First Avenue Conway Falconer has been a neighbour of the church for about eight years. The 56-year-old bearded entrepreneur speaks fondly of the heritage site.
“It’s always been a building I have been proud to speak of when talking about my area. It’s not just your typical building. It’s a church that has experienced a lot. I think at some stage someone tried to sell antiques from there and I think Lebrun once lived there. It’s like it’s always changing inside but always stays the same,” he says.
It can always be argued that it is fairly easy to recycle an existing building, particularly a building such as this former Methodist Church. However, the innovation and care with which the interior has been converted shows the importance and grace of the Pink Church. One cannot help but be mesmerised and captured by the finishes, use of colour and visual excitement it currently carries.
FEATURED IMAGE: The north entrance of the Pink Church, on Second Avenue, previously a parking area, the space is now used as an acid room. Photo: Palesa Dlamini
As the artsy Johannesburg suburb of Melville modernises, its rich heritage is slowly beginning to fade. Now, new efforts are being made by those who are fighting to keep Melville’s heritage alive.
It’s a warm Saturday afternoon in Melville, Johannesburg. Spring has come into full effect leaving the streets lined with pink and purple flowers. On 7th Street and 4th Street, women weave through the cars holding hand woven baskets and bags for sale while families, 30-something year old trendsetters, students, and bikers sporting two full sleeves of tattoos people-watch at an outdoor table from one of the restaurants spilling onto the pavements.
A few quaint buildings betray Melville’s age. The suburb is one of the older suburbs in Johannesburg, built in 1905 at the foot of the Melville Koppies by a developer named Edward Harker Vincent Melville, for whom the suburb was named.
Over time, many of the older buildings have been altered beyond recognition or disappeared altogether. However, some have held firm. One of these sits on the jacaranda-lined Second Avenue. A large powder blue late Victorian style home defined by a turret stands draped by pink flowers. This is the Melville Turret guesthouse.
It’s gabled roof, French windows, and original steel pressed ceilings first attracted owner Koos Heymand to the house.
“This house was built in 1906. It’s one of the oldest houses in Melville,” says Heymand. He is a warm, lively man who often stops in his tracks to engage in good-natured conversation with Patricia, one of his six employees working full time at the guesthouse, who has been working at the front desk for the past 10 years.
HERITAGE: The Melville Turret pictured today and as it stood when photographed by The Star in 1980.
For the past 13 years, Heymand has been trying to conserve the character and history of the guesthouse. He has renovated areas of it, particularly the kitchen and bathrooms. He has also remodelled each room; one is a modern black and white private loft, another is jewel-toned with graphic African prints hanging on the walls, while another is modest in understated tones of blue and grey.
At the same time, he has kept details such as the original tiled fireplace, wooden floors and private hidden courtyards and balconies for some of the rooms. He has also vowed not to change the exterior.
“There are very few houses like this left. I wanted to keep the original character of the house,” he says.
DETAILS: The Melville Turret still boasts its original steel pressed ceilings and displays chandeliers typical to those of the Victorian era.
The guesthouse is legally protected under the National Heritage Resources Act of 1999, which is a law aimed at national heritage sites. The Act defines heritage sites as “places with qualities so exceptional that they are of special national significance” and included under this are buildings that are older than 60 years.
Heymand points to 4th Street, a commercial street in Melville not too far from the guesthouse. “On 4th Street there is nothing that has retained its value. Everything is modern. I think it’s sad,” he says.
He is not the only Melville business owner who believes this. Down the road from Heymand’s guesthouse is the trendy 7th Street. A 10-minute walk up the street will take one under canopies and passed iron lattice decorations and thick columns, a mix of modern buildings with Victorian ones, and a mix of people speaking languages ranging from English and isiZulu to French and Arabic.
Most of the buildings on the street were built between 1905-1936 and were originally home to bakeries, butcheries and boutique shops.
Now the buildings house trendy restaurants, clothing stores and bars. A tattoo parlour and a thrift store share the same distressed wooden awnings.
VIDEO: Several Melville residents explain what makes 7th Street special.
However, the subtle Victorian details are fading under the clash of bright colored paint and neon signs. The pressed steel ceilings are beginning to crack and sag in some areas. In others, they have been painted over altogether so that some of the detail is lost.
New businesses close almost as fast as they open and each new business owner alters the building to suit their needs.
“You can see some buildings on this street have changed the shape and have changed their sides from wood to steel. That’s wrong; it shouldn’t be allowed. It ruins the buildings,” says Kader Bouredji a business owner of the IT Corner Cafe on 7th Street.
ORIGINAL: Victorian architectural details are still visible on 7th Street.
By law, business owners are required to obtain a permit and approach heritage consultants before making alterations on heritage buildings. However, some of the business owners had no idea that the buildings were heritage sites. As a result, some business owners have made unapproved alterations with no consequence.
“Melville is famous for its buildings, that’s one of the reasons why tourists come here, and that’s being lost,” says Bouredji.
Bouredji has owned his cafe on 7th Street for the past 10 years. Lining its soft pink walls are oil paintings for sale, distressed wood shelves containing yellowing books and the perfectly preserved original Victorian pressed ceilings.
Patrons sit at the tables working from MacBooks and sipping cups of coffee. Chairs and tables placed outside give patrons a view of the street. A regular smokes a hookah pipe while watching people walk by.
“This place was built in 1923. It used to be a boutique shoe shop,” Bouredji says.
At 95 years old, the building falls under legal protection. This limits business owners like Bouredji in a number of ways.
“When you want to fix or renovate the building you have to use the same materials that were used before. So we have window panes made of wood that we need to replace, and we can’t replace it with steel. We need to replace it with wood. It makes it harder, and takes longer. Even now, we can’t close the windows,” he says. It’s a struggle that Heymand knows only too well.
Maintaining the Melville Turret isn’t cheap; it costs him about R100 000 per year partly due to the old pipework made of galvanized steel. He says it’s worth it to preserve the house. “There are very few houses like this one left because Melville is going the Parkhurst route of converting all the houses into modern abodes,” he says. “But we’ve got to be sensitive to [heritage sites]. This is our history and the history of our city.
Heritage consultants and co-authors of the book The Johannesburg Gas Works Monika Läuferts and Judith Mavunganidze are fighting for 7th Street and other heritage sites in Melville to be further protected. In 2015 they declared 7th Street at critical risk in a heritage impact assessment they did of it.
According to their report, 7th Street was declared a “high priority” area because “most of the buildings on the street are at high risk of being altered until they are unrecognisable”.
Läuferts explained that this was because of the high rotation of owners.
“Facades get changed. They replace the original wood with aluminum or paint over the wood. Once you’ve painted over the wood it isn’t easy to restore,” she said.
Läuferts works from her stark white minimalist office in Westdene containing heavy antique furniture and models for buildings she is working on. Originally from Germany, she is the co-founder of Tsica Heritage Consultants, which has been operating since 2008.
“Heritage protection in South Africa is young,” she explained. “[Before 1999] the lack of legal standing made it difficult to preserve buildings and a lot of old buildings were demolished in the 60s and 70s to make way for modern buildings.”
This was later challenged by activists such as Flo Bird, who began protecting heritage sites in 1972 when the government planned to bulldoze eight Victorian-era buildings in Parktown in order to make room for a new motorway.
Bird has since funnelled her passion for preserving heritage sites into founding the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation which provides heritage tours, campaigns to preserve heritage sites, puts blue plaques on heritage buildings depicting their age and history and archives the history of older sites.
“Melville started as a working-class area and what we’ve found is that very rich and very poor areas tend to change very little while middle class areas tend to change a lot,” she explained.
“Most of the houses in Melville were originally builder designs and today they’re completely different.”
“There is no more picturesque or healthy spot in the vicinity of Johannesburg than Melville. Those who have gone there with a view to purchase pronounce it to be situated in the very finest position for suburban residences.
It is situated on elevated ground, with a magnificent view of the wooded country to the north, the blue Pretoria ranges stretching like lines of steel against the horizon.”
– Extract taken from a notice advertising property in Melville placed in The Critic on 23 October 1896.
This adds to the difficulty of tracing the history of heritage buildings in the area. When Heymand first bought the guesthouse from two architects in 2005, he found that the history of the house was not available. Since then he has been trying to piece it together from snippets of information found around the house and obtained from the previous owners.
“I know it was built by Erik van de Berg and he owned a bicycle shop in Braamfontein. I found the original 1906 plans with the city council. I also found an old plaque on the property showing that it was called Melville Mews and it used to be a lodging house,” he said.
However, when looking through the records at the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, an Erik van de Berg doesn’t appear. Like many other houses in Melville, the history of the Melville Turret is one that is passed down through the memories of its owners.
According to the National Heritage Resources Act, a person who alters a heritage site without first obtaining a permit may have criminal charges brought against them. While the state has been proactive about conserving notable sites such as Robben Island, the enforcement of the act for less famous buildings has been laid largely at the feet of proactive people and the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, which has had to step in where the state has fallen short by taking business owners who have demolished heritage buildings without proper approval to court.
“Some business owners are cowboys, they’ll just destroy knowing that the chances of being caught are minimal,” Bird explained.
SIDEWALK: Melville residents gather on the pavement outside stores and sit with friends at the bars and restaurants to people-watch.
Enforcement of the Heritage Resources Act can also bring challenges for developers. Architect and director of Melville-based Two Five Five Architects, André Krige, says there are various unique challenges that come with heritage developments. “The submission [and approval] process can and has often delayed projects for years. We have projects that have been submitted in 2015 and are still in the process of being approved,” he says.
Another issue that they often face is dealing with buildings that are so neglected that it becomes difficult to determine the actual heritage value of them. The documentation of the building that they have on hand can also differ from the documentation available off-site.
“We have had cases where original drawings show mosaic tiles to the entrance foyer and BELCom, a respected heritage committee in Cape Town, requested that we keep these tiles and incorporate them within the design. The reality however is that none of these tiles or any real heritage fabric exists anymore. We change our designs to accommodate things that no longer exist and the process of appealing these decisions is even more cumbersome,” he says.
Läuferts agrees that practical issues often make historical restoration difficult. “There’s always a massive discussion around money. Business owners come to us with elaborate plans and realise they don’t have the funding,” she says.
FIGHTING BACK: Monika Läuferts (above) is one of the people fighting for greater heritage protection in Melville and beyond.
Within Melville, Läuferts says that there needs to be a comprehensive plan to preserve the area. “The whole suburb needs a conservation management plan dictating what can be built, what style it can be built in, and how many levels a building can have,” she says.
Efforts are being made to preserve the area by giving 7th Street Hertitage Area Protection. This would mean protecting the original street facades as well as identifying specific stands that have heritage value for protection. This would make it much harder for shop owners and occupants to alter the building permanently. If approved, it will take 3-4 years to be finalised.
One of the buildings that has been identified is the Melville Mansions building that Two Five Five Architects is working on which has been identified for being one of the few clear examples of an art deco style building.
Monika Läuferts and Judith Mavunganidze are working alongside Two Five Five Architects to develop the building while still keeping the heritage elements intact. The building currently stands as a stark white, empty building on 7th Street with the geometric details characteristic of the art deco style still recognisable. Once opened, it will house a boutique hotel, apartments and offices.
“Melville still has charm. It still has the feel of a neighbourhood. You can walk around and even with students moving in and out there’s still a community and an exchange of interesting people,” Läuferts says.
She adds, “Heritage is a big thing in Europe and people always think a building has to be centuries old. You don’t necessarily have to go centuries back. You have it right here and in the most beautiful ways. Johannesburg has all decades from the 1880s and that needs to be protected.”
Walking through buildings like the Melville Turret gives one a sense of that a part of Melville’s memory lives within it. When sipping tea on one of its cozy couches on the verandah, Heymand speaks of how he once saw a picture of the original owners playing chess on the same verandah in 1906. The picture is now gone, but in the past 100 years the verandah has remained unchanged.
As Heymand describes the house, the sentiments of Bird echo through. “Heritage buildings are the landmarks of history. An area without a past is like a man without a memory. It feels unreal,” she previously said.
RENOVATION: The Melville Mansions is a building recognisable for being a clear example of art deco architecture.
FEATURED IMAGE: Melville residents gather on the pavement outside stores and sit with friends at the bars and restaurants to people-watch. Photo: Naledi Mashishi.
The identity of Melville has shifted significantly since the land was proclaimed in 1896. The suburb is currently a bohemian area filled with hipsters, entrepreneurs and bargain hunters, while thrifting has been in Melville for the past 20 years.
The ‘Melville strip’, 7th Street, is home to some of the trendiest restaurants in Johannesburg with the odd thrift store sandwiched in-between. Thrift stores have remained a constant throughout the evolving Melville area.
IF YOU turn left off 7th Street, and venture two shops down on 4th Avenue, you will find Bounty Hunters Charity Shop. The shop has been around for the past two decades, keeping the idea of thrifting in style. Two weeks after it opened the shop took on a whole new venture and doubled as a cat shelter.
THRIFT: The entrance of Bounty Hunters Charity shop on 4th Avenue in Melville.
Gail Millard, the store owner, has been in the thrift shop business for 22 years. Gail started her first thrift shop, Hope Charity, in 1996 on 2nd Avenue. The store was going strong, with 20 different charities involved in providing stock in return for profits.
After six years, in 2002, Gail was forced to find a new place to house her business as the space had become too small. This was due to the high level of stock that Gail receives daily, “I have received donations every day for the past 22 years, so it doesn’t matter how fast I am selling stock, there is always more coming.
Her new establishment was on 4th Avenue, above May’s Chemist. Gail stayed on 4th Avenue for 11 years until 2013, when the same problem of space eventually arose again.
Gail unflatteringly describes herself as a “barren spinster”. “I have no husband and no children. These cats that you see here are my children and this place is my whole life. I am here 365 days a year. It never stops.”
The 65-year-old looks exhausted when she eventually looks up from the boxes of books that she is unpacking. Her strawberry blonde hair is cropped quite short to make it easier to handle, her glasses sitting comfortably as if they have been part of her face with its smile lines, for years.
Her standard attire of a light blue top fits well on her medium-sized frame. It is as regular as her oldest customer. Gail says that it is a crazy time right now at the thrift store as a book shop down the road has closed and is sending all its stock to Bounty Hunters. “I have been working non-stop, that’s why my hair looks like this and I haven’t slept a wink,” she says, as she starts to clean one of the two cages that house four newly found kittens.
There is no break, Gail never stops. She is either unpacking or pricing stock, feeding a kitten or catching up with a customer.
Upon entering Bounty Hunters, the feeling of overwhelming chaos instantly hits you. Should you pick up the book on the floor, fold the blouse on the table or straighten the pictures piled on top of each other? If you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, I would highly recommend that you back track and find your nearest Woolies with its order.
CAT LADY: Gail Millard, a cat lover and thrift shop owner. CHAOS: The first floor of Bounty Hunters Charity Shop is cluttered with donations.
Crossing the threshold thrusts you into madness. There is a narrow walkway to the first floor that has a range of items littering the tables along the way, books, picture frames and baskets. Up four steps and you are on the first floor and bam! The smell hits you.
The smell is somewhere near a cross between a vet’s rooms and a petting zoo, which is unconventional for a charity shop. Your eyes can’t instantly place where the smell comes from because all that’s visible are clothes: jackets, shirts, pants and more jackets hanging on multiple rails that hang from the ceiling all along the first floor.
WATCH: A video about Bounty Hunters Charity Shop and their regular and first-time customer experiences.
Towards the middle of the store there is an overflowing food bowl with an even larger water bowl next to it. This is strange for a thrift shop because they aren’t for sale. A quick turn around and it all clicks! Sleeping peacefully on a few crates of books is a cat, a caramel, white and black spotted one that is fast asleep.
There are quite a few cats, a black Halloween cat sleeping on a box of unopened stock. A grey and white spotted one cleaning herself on a set of picture frames perched high above the rest.
There is a staircase to the left of the store that takes you to the second floor, which houses less chaos. There are shelves that are crammed full with many different books of every genre under the sun.
Glasses, plates and other crockery are also neatly on display. At the far end of the second floor there are four litter boxes for the cats to avoid any accidents in the store. Gail’s thrift stores and cats have been in Melville for 22 years.
COMFY: A grey and white cat has her bed on a desk to catch the afternoon sun.
Gail lovingly cuddles the grey and white cat that was atop the picture frames on the second floor, as she narrates the story of the first cat at Bounty Hunters.
She scratches her head trying to remember every detail, “Almost two years from the day we opened, I had an elderly lady come in with a truck load of donations – she had lived in a mansion of a house for years and was now downsizing. It took her two truck trips to bring everything, but she couldn’t find a home for her cat.
So naturally by the second load, I couldn’t let her just put the cat down, so I told her I would take the cat too.” Gail orchestrated an adoption to a suitable family within two weeks.
Bounty Hunters currently has 50 to 60 cats residing on the property, all having been brought to Gail. The cats are found either in the Melville or Westdene area. “Anybody in the area knows what I do here so any rescue missions or cats left in dustbins are brought here,” adds Gail. Gail only accepts cats from either Melville or Westdene otherwise she says she would end up with hundreds of cats.
“I’m of the opinion that if you can help in some way then you should, so that is why I do this. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) are overrun and cannot handle the large number of strays and abandoned cats so I do my part,” she adds.
Some people have a problem with the initiative, it being an unorthodox way of running an informal cat shelter, says Gail. “The customers generally only complain about the cats when they don’t get a discount on the stock.” Gail adds as she rushes around the store to help a customer.
Gail usually brushes such characters off but on other days she verbally lays into them, “If I haven’t taken my meds and then I can really fly off the handle,” She laughs as she realises that she may not have taken her meds that morning.
She contributes to various outreach programmes that work off the thrift shop. One programme involves assisting other charities, which send stock to Bounty Hunters which is marked with each charity’s code and when the stock is sold the profits are sent back to the charity.
Gail started with 20 charities but she says due to a high level of theft between the drivers of the charities and her ex-employees she has cut down the number of charities to three.
Most of the profits from sold stock currently goes to the upkeep of the cats in the form of food and vets’ bills. Individuals that donate to the store decide who they would like the profits donated to; either they select one of the three charities, or they select for their profits to be donated to caring for the cats at Bounty Hunters.
SALE: A display of small items priced between R1 and R5 on the second floor of Bounty Hunters.
In addition, Gail assists individuals that help with the cat shelter project. An elderly woman in Westdene fosters four cats for the project, and receives a discount on cat food. Gail normally sells her cat food for R160 but she only charges the woman R5. This allows her to continue fostering the cats.
Lynne Millard, Gail’s sister, also helps with the cat sheltering project. Lynne works as a masseuse in the Westdene area and is also an animal lover. According to Gail, “Lynne can book her appointments when she wants to so she has time to help me, especially with kittens as we both know how to bottle feed.”
Lynne also fosters some of the cats until Gail can find them adequate homes. “If I am struggling to find a home she will take them on so it gives me a bit more time,” Gail says.
Bounty Hunters sees a variety of people every day. An Indian man, dressed in a light blue shirt and smart black pants piles R5 books into a basket. A middle-aged white man picks out an evening jacket.
Pierre Roestorf, 65, retired from the South African Broadcasting Corporation after a colourful 30 years as a lighting director at the broadcaster. He has regularly visited Gail’s various stores for the past 22 years.
“I always pass by here as there are interesting things here. Just yesterday, I bought a six-pack of beautiful crystal glasses. All I do is spare five minutes on my daily stroll to check if anything new has come in,” he says.
Although it may seem to be all sunshine and rainbows in the Melville community, there are mixed opinions in Melville about the work that Gail does.
The Animals Protection Act states that only two cats can reside on a commercial property. However, according to Gail, the Animal Anti-Cruelty League and the SPCA have visited Bounty Hunters and have commended her for the work she is doing for cats in Melville.
“Obviously many people have phoned to report me but the people at the SPCA have always been quite grateful for what I do here. It helps them a lot and, quite frankly, it’s the least I can do,” Gail says.
There are two restaurants that flank Bounty Hunters – Mootee and The Melville Grill Lounge. Peter Good, the Mootee owner, says that initially he was a bit skeptical about the cats, especially having them so close to his restaurant.
MEOW: A Halloween cat that’s resident at the Bounty Hunters thrift shop in Melville. Photo: Elizabeth-Jane Ringrose.
“We had our worries early on but Gail was great, she put up extra barricading along the wall that’s closest to the charity store. She also comes past every second day to check if there aren’t any accidents, and if there are, she cleans them up.” The 27-year-old adds that the cats have really helped with rodents. “There are no rats or mice problems, thankfully.
“We’re all quite pet friendly around here, I have my pup, Iggy, that stays with me during the day, so it’s not really a problem for me,” Good adds as he finishes wiping down the bar just before opening for the day.
In contrast, the manager at The Melville Grill Lounge says that the thought of having 60 cats in an area right next door is very worrisome. “It is very bad to me. I know a lot of people support it and it is good to save the cats, but I worry about my business. There haven’t been any problems with the cats on my property, so I haven’t done anything.” he adds.
Melville has a small community feel of people helping the next person. Some of the residents and shop owners of Melville feel strongly that the work that Gail does is commendable.
Peter Harris, owner of Sunbury Place, a guest house on Sunbury Avenue along the outskirts of Melville, says that the cats are a prominent topic in the area.
“The cats are quite topical – people either like it or they don’t. To me I think it’s fine, [Gail has] always had a lot of cats and she clearly takes good care of all of them, so I don’t see a problem,” he says.
“After living in the area for 15 years, I’ve realised that it’s Melville, things are done differently around here which is what makes this place special,” Harris adds. The famous Seventh Strip has become quite pet-orientated, according to some shop owners on the Strip.
Elmien le Grange, the owner of Our House, a furniture refurbishing store on 7th Street, says that the Melville community is quite pet conscious.
“We often have people come and browse with their dogs mainly. There are a few regulars that come and get their coffee with their dogs. I am just meeting the pet community feel that Melville already has,” she adds.
It’s clear that as long as Gail Millard is around, Bounty Hunters will continue to be a home for stray and abandoned cats as well as a great place to find a bargain.
FEATURED IMAGE: Gail Millard, a cat lover and thrift shop owner. Photo: Elizabeth-Jane Ringrose.
The National Children’s Theatre is an old establishment shaping the futures of young artists.
LITTLE FEET stomp on the wooden floor above me at the National Children’s Theatre’s (NCT) during Saturday morning workshops. The old wooden ceiling below them squeaks, simulating their excited voices while revealing it has stood the test of time. It’s intriguing how an old building, a Johannesburg heritage site, has become home to the nurturing and development of youth’s theatrical talent.
It is 9 o’clock on a warm and cloudy Saturday morning at the NCT in one of Johannesburg’s wealthier suburbs, Parktown. The theatre consists of two houses separated by a parking lot for staff and visitors. Children aged 3-17 are being dropped off at the theatre by their parents. Some parents wait with their children until the workshops start. Others wait in the parking lot with their car doors open and seats laid back. The oldest children go to the main theatre. There are 12 of them, six boys six girls. All classes rotate around different skills: physical theatre, music and dance classes, all lasting 40 minutes each.
I arrive at the building housing the main theatre. The house is overcrowded with props overflowing from their storage rooms into the downstairs passages. The stuffy smell from the props, along with the creaking floors and staircase, remind one of the age of the building, as youthful and joyful screams can be heard from the main theatre, which is roughly the size of a classroom. Half the theatre is taken up by a stage with stained white tiles and dull green curtains.
OLD WORLD CHARM: The room where the audience congregates before shows.
The dusty and creaking stairs lead me to the theatre. The children are playing their own version of musical chairs where the music – South African hip-hop – doesn’t stop. Each person rushes hastily to fill a seat. There’s a rather shy-looking, tall, young man with a black puffer jacket on, this hot morning. While the rest run and scream at each other to fill vacant seats, he merely jogs in between to eventually fill a seat.
The young man’s name is Clayde Peterson. His father and grandmother are in one of the cars in the parking lot waiting for the workshops to end. At the end of the music class, the last 40-minute class for the day, the children from all classes make their way out to the waiting parents. It is raining. It begins to thunder as Clayde and I make our way to his father and grandmother. A little girl of about four years old cries hysterically at the clap of thunder, desperately searching for an adult to run to.
WATCHFUL EYE: The NCF’s emblem displayed in the waiting room.
As we sit on a dusty, stained couch in the veranda of the second house, Clayde’s father, Clayton Peterson, reflects on the personality of his son. The large, yet gentleman, says Clayde, has been coming to the theatre workshops for four years.
OPEN DOOR POLICY: This heritage building houses the main theatre which holds an audience of about 100.
“At [age] nine he told me he wants to act. I went on the Jozi Kids [website], saw an ad and booked him for a holiday camp [with the NCT],” Peterson says. “He loves acting. He’s more involved by being here. His social skills have improved. He was very reserved to interact but now it’s much easier for him,” the 46-year-old says.
Clayde adds, “I’ve been more open and wanting to talk to people and learning different accents…I’ve been trying to get better at what I do here.” Neither as quiet nor shy as he had seemed at first, Clayde is rather outspoken, to my surprise. “The most significant thing I’ve learnt is to project my voice so that everyone can hear you. When I practice, my grandmother always tells me that she wouldn’t be able to hear me if she was sitting at the back,” the young Peterson continues.
HONOURS: A wall displaying the awards that NCT founder, Joyce Levinsohn, has amassed throughout her time at the theatre.
“He likes to watch different YouTube videos, practise acts and different accents,” Clayton says, and, chuckling, adds, “Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes he doesn’t.”
Clayton says that he likes to bring his son to the theatre. “The focus here is on the individual as opposed to school. At school there’s no time to focus on the individual. Since coming here, he’s been much more outgoing and willing to try new things.”
Although Clayde is learning to act at a theatre, he hopes to pursue an onscreen career. “I would love to pursue a film career. For me it’s interesting. There’s lots of takes. With theatre you cannot make mistakes,” the young actor-in-training says.
Chief Executive Officer of the NCT Moira Katz, refers to the theatre as an educational children’s theatre. “Our motto is transforming lives through educational theatre,” she says.
The Petersons’ experience of the workshops reflects the objectives of the theatre as expressed by Katz. “We strive to transform children’s lives through theatre,” she says. “Our children’s lives have been changed and they’ve found a home. This especially for sports-orientated schools with artistic children. They have found a place in the theatre.”
Katz took over the NCT in 2012, succeeding Joyce Levinsohn who had run the theatre since she started it in 1989. Levinsohn had been involved in the world of children’s theatre from when she gained qualifications in the field in the 1950s (Encyclopedia of South African Theatre, Film, Media & Performance, 2018). At the time, Levinsohn took a chance, through her housekeeper, to educate black teachers about a technique called, ‘Theatre in Education’. The theatre has kept to this approach to this day.
Theatre in Education has earned the NCT recognition. The work done at the theatre saw it winning the prestigious Naledi Awards five times, the most recent being in 2016 for the musical, Khokho’s Treasure. The play is about the death of an old man who has left behind a suitcase of treasure. The lesson is that not all rewards are monetary. Fitting enough for the NCT, Khokho’sTreasure was heritage that was transported through the music of the likes of Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela and Johnny Clegg.
RECOGNITION: The theatre has won numerous awards.
The incorporation of the fun side through learning is a consistent element in the production and teaching at the theatre. While the children may enjoy the approach to learning, the teaching doesn’t come across as strongly. The trainers are recent graduates from university, mainly the University of the Witwatersrand. To an observer, the workshops seem to lean more towards a Saturday social activity rather than training in theatre.
The NCT carries with it a rich architectural history. The first building, Ridgeholm, is a white single-story house with a thick black strip covering the bottom fifth of the wall. The house marks the first time that Cape Dutch gables were used in Johannesburg. It was designed by architects Leck and Emley and constructed in 1902 for an attorney, Richard Baumann, who served on the committee responsible for the return of the British after the Anglo-Boer war (The Heritage Register, n.d.). Today it houses the administration of the NCT, a small theatre and music room.
The second, and asymmetrical, double-storeyed building was designed and constructed on the same grounds over a decade later in 1913. The house was designed for a Mr Gregory who was a messenger of the court, who lived in the house with his wife until 1931 (The Heritage Register, n.d.). Both houses boast large bay windows. The municipality purchased the property in the 1970s with the plan to demolish the buildings and build the M6 motorway, but instead leased it out to the NCT for 50 years.
The plays reflect the edutainment approach. Eleven-year old Angelen van Heerden attests to this, saying that she started attending the workshops shortly after seeing a play at the NCT. “I came to see Pipi Longstockings two years ago as my friend was in it. The play taught me that it’s okay to be yourself. Pipi is a strange girl and she’s okay with it. Sometimes if you’re like everyone else, you’re a sheep. That’s what my mom says.I don’t like to be like everyone else. I feel like I’m being a sheep.”
Van Heerden says she feels more at home at the NCT than she did at her previous dance school. She says she was pushed too hard and felt as though she was not ready to be where her instructor needed her to be. “[At the NCT] they’re friendly, they don’t take everything so serious. It’s a nice environment. I like the fact that it’s more chilled.”
HISTORY: The blue plaque marking the National Children’s Theatre as a Johannesburg heritage site.
Media liaison officer Sydwell Koopedi, who has a background in musical theatre, has been with the NCT since 2004. His work is more on the public relations side. Koopedi describes his job as being inclusive of press releases and bookings for upcoming shows, arranging auditions, organising casting briefs, liaising with agencies, confirming bookings with schools, organising tours and sending out advertisements.
He says he faces challenges with the advertising since newspapers such as The Star did away with theatre sections. He adds that a lack of funding has negatively affected the theatre’s advertising.
Koopedi also assists with funding, as the NCT is a non-profit organisation that relies on funding and ticket sales. Tickets cost between R100 and R120 and can make up to R8 000 on a full-house. The National Lottery and Department of Arts and Culture are the major funders of the NCT. Koopedi’s duties include writing up budget reports, collecting invoices and filling out forms. “Its about four to five files,” he says with pride.
As he continues, his colourful character brightens against his black and white outfit. “I do tours. This year we did My Children! My Africa! for grade 12. It’s for setwork. When we’re doing our social programmes, I’m the one who books the schools and ensures that everything is booked: what time they get there, who to contact when they are there. So, it’s quite a lot!” he says as he shares how underprivileged schools are challenging in terms of organising, paying and communicating with the theatre.
A five-minute walk up the road from the theatre is the Netcare Park Lane Hospital. A security guard there, Sandile Mdluli, says that the area is not safe. “During the week it’s busy and quiet on weekends.”
I found this to be true. The narrow Junction Avenue where the theatre is situated has barely enough room for cars to drive through, because of cars that are usually parked on both sides of the street. On weekends, however, parking is the least of one’s worries. There seem to be more of the patrolling security guards for the corporate buildings between the theatre and Park Lane, and the French-speaking car guards than parked cars.
“This is a high risk area. They steal cars like no-one’s business,” says the 37-year-old Mdluli. “We’re next to Hillbrow and Alexandra. Since the car guards got here two years ago, it’s been better. They used to steal one or two cars in a week. Now it’s maybe a car per month,” the Servest guard says.
Mdluli says that to tackle the crime problem, the security guards from Park Lane, Wits Junction (Wits University student residence), Life Brenthurst Clinic, Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital and security company ADT communicate regarding security related issues. He says that it is mandatory for them to help each other out to curb crime.
Although there are safety concerns about the area where the theatre is situated, it has become a home away from home to some children, a treasure for children’s arts. However, the heritage houses do not portray that image. Old, dusty and cluttered, the houses need to reflect the work being done inside, otherwise they just blend in with the surrounding rundown area.
While the weekend workshops set the theatre apart from other youth centres and theatres, the lack of focus on the skill in some of the workshops needs addressing. The NCT may struggle with funding, but to its credit, the theatre has been consistent in ensuring that such issues do not affect the children, reflecting the safe place and home that the theatre has become to many children.
FEATURED IMAGE: The room where the audience congregates before shows. Photo: Onke Ngcuka.
Informal work is the foundation of any developing area, it provides an avenue for its populace to push back against poverty and deprivation. Melville is no different.
When you arrive on 7th Street in Melville, the veneer of restaurants and bars stand out to all in sight. Boasting roadside cafes and thrift shops, the infamous strip is crowded with hairy hipsters and travelling thrifters, all complementing the niche aesthetic of the area.
Two men stand atop the street, surveying the area predatorily. The first – a tall, inconspicuous man – makes a move towards the adjacent street, into a garage behind a convenience store – disappearing for a couple of minutes. He reappears with wooden beams and begins setting up a makeshift stall outside the Pakistani-owned convenience store.
The second – short and staunch – after greeting a couple of bystanders heads towards the construction site, adding the finishing touches to the makeshift stand. Their work site is set for the day.
Sam Muzumbi, 35, and Shepard Murwisi, 30, are these two men and they are landmarks of 7th, having been there for nearly 10 years. Unbothered and bold, the two have been repairing and making shoes and other items throughout the past decade on Melville’s signature strip.
THE MAKESHIFT STAND: Akin to a spaza shop, the stall displays a number of different leather items – shoes, belts, wallets and bags
Like Yeoville of the late 70s, Melville is a multi-cultural space, where blacks and whites pose for picturesque ‘post-Apartheid South African’ moments – an enigmatically bohemian place, indeed. In recent years it has taken the role of a tourist destination, like Long Street in Cape Town, because of its artsy aesthetic – appealing to travellers pursuing the taste of an authentic Johannesburg outing.
The brother’s store, oddly named Big Fish Art, has profited from this expansion. Their stall is slotted in opposite a vintage thrift shop, that such, makes the brothers a marquee for tourists looking for genuine South African souvenirs. These self-employed Zimbabwean brothers will provide this “genuine” merchandise.
ARTISANS: Sam and Shepard see themselves as artists, with each item having a unique style symbolic of their distinct craftsmanship.
Their story reads as awfully analogous to those of many immigrants who have made the trip to South Africa in search of job opportunities and an overall better standard of living. Sam, the one lesser in length, was the first to make the transition from Harare to Johannesburg, packing his bags and catching a bus south in 2009 seeking greener pastures.
When he arrived in South Africa, unemployed and penniless, he resorted to the same trade he implored in Zimbabwe – fixing shoes. Sam, a cobbler, first learned to repair shoes from his uncles back home.
In Melville this skill would prove helpful as the patrons of the area were thrift-driven hipsters from the surrounding residences, home to mostly University of Johannesburg students, who rather than buying new shoes would prefer to fix their old ones and save the change for more important things.
“They come here to drink, this place for them is about drinking and partying. So they don’t want to waste money on other things like buying new shoes. So they just come to me and I do it for cheap,” Sam says before letting out a cheeky smirk.
These early days were the foundations for the brand’s growth. As his reputation and pocket grew, Sam, also known as Rasta, began pulling in more customers – specifically other workers in the area.
Bartenders, waiters, domestic workers and security guards from the surrounding bars and residences were the sort of customers who would regularly need their shoes repaired because of the nature of their work and the expense of having to buy new ones.
SET-UP: Belts on the left, wallets ordered all in the middle and shoes scattered miscellaneously around the desk-size stand. Their bags hang over a rack facing the road, dangling with a slight silliness.
In need of an extra hand, Sam invited Shepard, his wife’s brother, to South Africa to work with him. Shepard, a cobbler by blood, was the ideal partner for this venture, he was family and his father had been a cobbler too.
The two brothers have since come to represent an indiscernible aspect of Melville’s artsy aesthetic, an army of informal workers looking to capitalize on the demographic of its curb-side coffeehouses and bookshops with handmade products and hands-on services.
The informal sector is often considered as existing outside the economy; its impact viewed in a vacuum compared to the rest of the economy because it escapes the realm of regulation, statistics and taxation, according to Caroline Skinner, senior researcher at the African Research for Cities at the University of Cape Town.
Skinner considers this a “missed opportunity to regularly highlight the quality of work in SA.” Many of the jobs in the informal sector are unrecorded and, therefore, deprived of analysis and study.
BREAK: Sam takes a break during the day, he usually works from 9am to 5pm.
The work of a shoemaker, for example, is a particularly precarious one. Sam and Shepard leave their two-bedroom Auckland Park apartment at 8am on a warm spring Saturday, saddled on a small motorbike with all their tools and material needed for the day.
Most of their shoes are produced in the comfort of their own home; with their own machinery they stich up the products from the leather they purchase from a second-hand warehouse on Plein street in the CBD.
Their arrival in Melville is not met with awaiting customers and eager clients, their spot is bare, unoccupied and expressionless – no employer for them to check in with.
Their task for the first hour is to set out their stall in the same orderly fashion they do every day.
Their days are slow, spent mostly repairing the few shoes available on the day. Sam casually patches up the hole on an old loafer while Shepard sits there observing.
Parked on Coca-Cola crates outside the convenient store, escaping the scorching sun, the two speak about football while evaluating onlookers on the merit of their likelihood to purchase an item. No focus group or market research for them to identify and reach their ideal target market.
They simply assess their clothes, walk and proximity to the stall, working on their gut, before pouncing, “good day ma’am, you see anything you like?”
She walks away, ignoring their pitch, and they return to their seats. This goes on for well over an hour before the first onlooker commits. “These are nice,” a 30-something year old white man says while showing his girlfriend a brown pair of leather farm-style shoes.
Sam switches into salesman mode and starts smothering the couple, “Yes, these will look nice on you, sir. Try them on”. Carefully caressing the man’s ego, Sam works his magic – the kind of sales pitch he’s worked on for years.
A LONG DAY’S WORK: Patrick sits outside a convenient store repairing shoes for Melville residents from 9am to 6pm every day.
The moment has come for Sam to make his move as the Ray-Ban-draped man lowers the size 9, “the shoe is R700, boss. But for you I can give it for R600,” he says with the kind of ‘bargain struck’ demeanour of a true salesman.
It fails, and the man walks away with his girlfriend hand-in-hand to the opposing thrift shop. Sam returns to his seat and Shepard takes the chance to explain the maths behind their pitch.
“I can make these shoes for R250 or R300, then we sell them for a lot of money and we can always make more profit. It’s b-b-b-business, my friend,” he says with a slight stutter airing out the awkwardness which brands him the more reserved of the two.
The course of the day mostly plays out like this, Sam and Shepard share some business tips with me before putting them into practise on unsuspecting passers. Their day comes to an end and besides the few wallets and odd pair of shoes they sell; this Saturday has been a quiet one.
Operational every day besides Sunday, Saturday is usually their most rewarding day. The pair usually make around R2000 on a busy Saturday, when families gather for lunches in Melville’s niche cafes and tourists inspect the hoardings of different thrift and charity stores.
A WORK OF THE HANDS: Patrick reaches through his tools, his coarse hands have been doing this for the past eight years.
Today, the brothers leave with slightly under R1000, the kind of money that makes their 9-5 shifts seem a little shameful. It makes little difference, however, they are neither renting the space they occupy or pay taxes for their income, they simply walk away with it – likely to support their livelihoods and send the rest home to their families in Zimbabwe.
The sunset on Melville’s 7th is especially beautiful, setting just above the steep slopes of this lively street – it is ironically romantic considering all the labour that takes place here. The brothers pack up their store and return its structure to the garage behind the convenience store – disappearing unnoticed, like the sun.
The two hop back on their motorbike and return home, hoping to get a good night’s rest and an early start tomorrow.
Even in the heart of the handsome suburbs of Melville, Sam and Shepard’s livelihood is subject to the realities of a harsh economy and an unreliable demographic. Informal work anywhere in the country is largely unpredictable.
Patrick Nyame, a shrewd and hopeful Ghanaian man, sets up his site a few streets down from the brothers in Melville. He, too, is a cobbler and his work includes stitching, etching and mending shoes.
He has recently expanded his business into producing sandals and other footwear.
He came to South Africa, like Sam and Shepard, seeking a better life. His brother had been the first of his kin to embark on the journey, arriving in 2011 only to discover the sad truth that poverty and depravation were no different here.
Patrick Nyame, a shrewd and hopeful Ghanaian man, sets up his site a few streets down from the brothers in Melville. He, too, is a cobbler and his work includes stitching, etching and mending shoes.
He has recently expanded his business into producing sandals and other footwear.
He came to South Africa, like Sam and Shepard, seeking a better life. His brother had been the first of his kin to embark on the journey, arriving in 2011 only to discover the sad truth that poverty and depravation were no different here.
When Patrick, a cocoa farmer, arrived two years later, pushed by the same optimism, his brother had worked as a cobbler and was now a barber in the dilapidated Brixton centre. He was in an unyielding position to lower Patrick’s expectations, quickly helping his younger brother to set up as a cobbler in the area.
“There’s too many jobs here, that’s what everyone says. But when you get here you have to make a plan. You spend all your money coming here, so when I arrived I had no money, no job,” Patrick says while astutely focusing on removing the grip of a struggling sandal.
With a short hand knife, he picks the stitching off the sandal one by one before continuing, “And you can’t be the guy with nothing or else everyone will laugh at you, so I made a plan.”
Patrick’s livelihood wholeheartedly depends on his clientele and if they are not in need of his work he can go home with less than R100 a day compared to his usual R300 income. His dependency on his customers is a point of despair for the 53-year-old.
“If I find something else, I’ll leave this”. He drops the sandal and reaches out for a brown stiletto, rubbing its 10-centimetre sole before considering his next thought. “At the end of the day, if people don’t bring shoes then there’s nothing for me. It’s like that, one day can be good then tomorrow there’s nothing.”
The work of an informal worker like a shoemaker, thus, is irregular. The issue with informal work remains its vulnerability, with a number of informal start-ups closing within six months of their establishment, according to Skinner.
Sam and Shepard, like Patrick, have passed the test of time and are considering ways to expand their business in the Melville area. The introduction of their own merchandise into their work was an especially inspiring move for their business.
Rather than simply repairing shoes, the two brothers are creating their own signature merchandise with a production line they are in full control over, ensuring their stay in Melville is extended.
The journey to making their own products has been a long one but now it has brought some reward. Luka Epstein, 18, has observed the store’s growth in recent years and has purchased a few items in the past.
The web developer, who has lived in Melville for the past 10 years, says, “I always check on their stuff. They are putting in effort to make a life for themselves. It brings this bourgeois area to the level of the people.”
The thrift shop, the Moral Kiosk, opposite their stall has helped them reach a new and younger clientele. The two stores share an appreciation for one another, working to develop a deeper connection within Melville’s thrift community.
“They have a very unique approach, it’s craftsmanship and fashion. I think it’s very dope. A lot of people come to Melville looking for a vintage aesthetic rather than going to a store I mean. So this is more authentic,” says Lwando Gwili, an employee at the Moral Kiosk.
The thrift store sells secondhand clothing and footwear as well offering vinyl and other antique items. The nappy-haired twenty-five-year-old described the bond between their store and the brother’s one while scratching his patchy beard, “We complement each other. We have vintage clothing and they have vintage accessories. It just works well.”
Dwellers of Melville have, too, taken an appreciation for the work of Sam and Shepard. Ezekiel Mofokwane, 45, has been jogging through the Melville area for over 10 years and has developed an admiration for the informal work in the area.
“This place is fine and safe. These guys make quality stuff and it’s affordable, so they give people options. Plus, its original and authentic stuff that you don’t find in other places,” Mofokwane says while sneaking a break in on his weekly jog.
Melville in all its allure and antiquity is made up of individuals like Sam, Shepard and Patrick. Their labour is the heartbeat behind the vibrant suburb – they are the worker bees of this buzzing hive.
They go unnoticed and are only around when there’s work to be done. Modest and humble, they are the indiscernible army of Melville.
FEATURED IMAGE: A variety of belts on display at a trader’s site. Photo: Tshegofatso Mokgabudi.
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