2021 marks 50 years of Liz’s connection to 79 Lancaster Ave. As a young couple we purchased the house in 1971 from the original owner who had built it in 1948. We gradually altered to accommodate a growing family and then, with changed marital circumstances and children growing up, in 1994 Liz opened the Guesthouse […]
Read More »Lucille Davie’s Sophiatown tour I wrote briefly in my last blog about the history of SophiaTown, and its destruction in the late 1950s. This wholesale and devastating destruction of buildings left only four standing: Three that escaped were Christ the King Anglican Church, where Archbishop Trevor Huddleston preached, Dr Alfred Bitini Xuma’s house and St […]
Read More »Re- presentations of Sophiatown I am ashamed to say that the closest I had come to Sophiatown before February 2020, (more of the tour with Lucille Davie in my next blog) was attending the production of Malcolm Purkey’s play by that name at the Market Theatre in 1986. And of course I also knew Gerard […]
Read More »Beat the Lockdown blues by taking in some sun and fresh air and having a change of scenery. Within walking distance of Liz at Lancaster, Vice is the ideal place to “feel the vibe”. This small quirky coffee shop is an off-shoot of adjacent popular neighbourhood restaurant: Cnr Café. Vice specializes in excellent […]
Read More »Gerald Garner of Joburg Places I first met Gerald Garner over 8 years ago when I joined him on one of his walking tours of Jozi inner city. Back then I wrote about his informed, fascinating and passionate account of Joburg – from the early mining days, to its Modernist heyday at the height of […]
Read More »From IT, to coffee roaster to coffee shop owner Follow your passion; Don’t chase the money; Slow down – that, it seems, is Dave’s philosophy. Until about 6 years ago, Dave’s work in IT took him all over Africa. And as one does when sealing a deal in Africa, you chat over a cup of […]
Read More »Parks as sites of activism In addition to being places of leisure and recreation, parks and public spaces are containers of values, bounded spaces of inclusion and exclusion, sites of political, social and cultural activism whether overtly or by default. During the 1980s in the height of Apartheid repression people’s parks in South Africa were […]
Read More »Shembe Church It all started with a plan to attend a Shembe Church service in the Madala Hostel in Alexandra but ended up quite differently as the worshippers had left for a gathering in Potchefstroom! In pre-Covid times (yes there was such a time), Harry Nakeng, an Alex tour guide, arranged for a group of […]
Read More »Nobody can argue that Covid has had a massive effect on all parts of the world in 2020 and that life under strict Lockdown was different from the life most of us had been used to. How it affected the world, how governments responded to Covid, and the impact on individuals, is a matter of […]
Read More »Wits Art History Department in the 1980s Once upon a time a very long time ago, in a past life, I taught History of Art at Wits (for over 20 years). Traditionally art history courses in colonial institutions emphasized western art with some local subject matter included. However, the Art History Department at Wits was […]
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