Retail History

I returned to Johannesburg from Durban late in 1945 with my mother when the War in Europe was finally over. My dad would soon return from the Middle East after serving with the SA Medical Corps in Cairo at a military hospital.

We took up temporary residence at a boarding house in Edith Cavell Street opposite the Twist Street Primary School. It was time to adapt to our new life back in Johannesburg, the City of my birth in 1935 in Brixton. I attended Twist Street Primary for standard 3 to 5 before going on to high school at Parktown Boy's High in Wellington Road, Parktown. After settling in, my parents found a flat in Kilkenny Court in de Villiers Street off Claim Street and the main railway lines coming into Johannesburg from the eastern side of the City were only one block away from where we lived.

Perhaps I should explain that I already had an interest in trains and ships - actually anything to do with transport but my main interest at this stage was railways. I learnt to ride a bicycle - my dad was my tutor - and after a short wobbly period, I gained confidence to ride all over the City and especially to the Johannesburg Railway Station.

I would ride my bike to the station on a Sunday morning to witness the departure of the fast (1st and 2nd class only) passenger train to Cape Town. There was a road tunnel from Harrison Street under the railway lines direct to platforms 3, 4, 5 & 6 for cars taking departing passengers right to the platform from...

If you walk down 11th Street in Parkmore, a short distance from the Sandton CBD, you may see some bright orange signage announcing 'Saks's Corner 1949'. Considering Sandton City was only built in the early 1970s there is certainly a story to be told. The following piece was written by Juliet Marais Louw in 1982 and reveals the history behind one of Sandton's oldest shops. Unfortunately the original structure has been demolished but the memory of the famous landmark lives on.

On the corner of 11th Street and Elizabeth Avenue in Parkmore, stands the well-known landmark of Saks’s Corner with the date 1949 on the wall outside.

Old photo of Saks's Corner (Sandton Archives)

Who was Saks and where did he come from? Harry Saks was born in Saville, Lithuania in 1911. When he was thirteen he went to live in Israel and then in Palestine where he stayed for several years. He led an exciting life there working as a guard on a farmer’s land where he dressed as an Arab to fool the thieves and snipers who roamed around and were a constant menace. He also worked as a photographer and slept on a roof-top at night. He had to pay the owner of the house 50 cents a month for his bed and when he left for South Africa...

In 1979 Dorothy O'Kennedy, an old resident of Rivonia, commenced a tremendous journey of discovery to find Rivonia's First Shop. Her story was published in the annual journal of the Sandton Historical Association. We retraced her steps but were unable to confirm whether or not the old building is still there. If you have any information on the shop please contribute to the comments section at the bottom of the article. Rivonia has certainly changed since this piece was first published!

I did not realise that I was part of the history of Sandton, until I noticed an appeal in The Star for people who had lived here in the early days to come forward and tell what they could remember.

In 1912 my family moved from Johannesburg to Rivonia - known then as Edenburg. I was eight years old, and I lived there until my marriage in 1926. My parents owned the tea garden Sleepy Hollow which was visited by people en route between Johannesburg and Pretoria. In those days it was much smaller than the present well known hotel.

One of the things which I remembered about my childhood in Rivonia was that Mr and Mrs Shull had a shop which was the focus of the neighbourhood, but no one else seemed to have mentioned it when reminiscing about the 'old days' so I determined to look for it, and to discover whether the building still existed.

As I had not returned to Rivonia for many years, I...

In the late 1920s two entrepreneurs opened a shop on the wrong side of  Johannesburg's retail district. The shop was located on Eloff Street, a block south of Pritchard Street. At the time it was generally accepted that to succeed in the retail trade your premises would have to be located in a portion of Eloff Street four blocks long north of Pritchard Street. Critics, competitors and commentators predicted their rapid demise but this was not to be. Below is an article from The Sunday Star (October 1986) giving an overview of the origins and success of OK Bazaars. Regarding the title… you’ll have to read until the end (it involves a certain I.W. Schlesinger)!

"…but in 1927 there opened, also in Eloff Street, the OK Bazaars. The OK was founded by a violinist turned shopkeeper, Sam Cohen, and a hairdresser turned commercial traveller, Michael Miller. Miller was born in Lithuania in 1893 and moved to Britain at the age of three with his parents. He left school to start work at the age of 13 and, when he was about 17, came to South Africa where he became a hairdresser. He eventually sold out his half-share in the small business for £25 and became a commercial traveller.

Sam Cohen was born in London in 1894, immigrating to South Africa with his parents just before the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War. He left school early and was a violinist when he met Dora Miller, Micheal’s sister. After their marriage Cohen joined his father’s business, consisting...