Flo Bird

The article below forms part of Mike Alfred's series on Joburg personalities from the first decade of the 21st century. Click here to view Kathy Munro's fantastic introduction and here to view the series index. The stories were written in 2005/6.  Please note that the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust transformed into the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation in 2012.

On a Saturday afternoon, an earnest and expectant crowd surrounds a woman in old Brixton Cemetery. They mentally recoil from smashed and overturned memorials, headstones and grave markers in this no longer used, historic gathering place for Johannesburg’s dead. The late summer afternoon sky is piled with thunderheads, but for the moment it’s hot, sunny and still; the wind presaging a highveld storm has not yet stirred. This short, blonde woman, knowledgeable and energetic, stands talking before a family grave. But her audience does not comprise mourners, rather they are visitors enjoying a tour of the graveyard, organized by the Parktown & Westcliff Heritage Trust. [P&W H T] 

A scene from Brixton Cemetery (Kathy Munro)

Interred in this family plot are Randlord Lionel Phillips, his wife Florrie who founded the Johannesburg Art Gallery and their son Frank who managed the family farm in Magoebaskloof. Later she tells her listeners about Norman Anstey who ran his department store in the Art Deco building...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie profiles South African heritage icon Flo Bird. The piece was originally published on the City of Joburg's website on 4 October 2002. Click here to read more of Davie's work.

“Don’t ask me dates,” says Flo Bird, amateur historian and fiery 1,56m (five foot) tall campaigner for preserving old Johannesburg.
 
Bird, 59, lives in the house she was born in, in Parktown, jam-packed with interesting items, hundreds of books and wonderful artworks. She is “descended from Johannesburg pioneers”, and finds it “very exciting” to live in the city. For 30 years she has been actively involved in researching the history of the city and promoting the preservation of its heritage.
 
Her love of Johannesburg and its history came from visiting the central library with her father as a child, and wandering around the Africana Museum (now the Museum Africa) which was on the top floor of the library, in the city centre. “We used to pay our respects to David Livingstone’s door at the end of the gallery. We never looked at the silver, it was too boring.”

Johannesburg Public Library

Her leisure time is taken up with her full-time passion - the city - and like many Johannesburgers, she would never consider living anywhere else.
 
The city and its residents...