Johannesburg

In the Curator’s Choice display of edged weaponry at the Ditsong National Museum of Military History, are Chinese double or paired swords from the early 19th Century. The swords are decorated with dragons that have five claws symbolising high rank. The museum’s Chinese paired swords may have belonged to either a Prince of the first rank or qinwang (Prince of the Blood) or a Prince of the second rank or junwang (Prince of the Commandery). 

According to legend, Chinese swords were first made well before 2000BCE. They are said to have been made of gold by a mythical hero named Suiren (fire maker) who also taught the Chinese people how to make fire and cook food.

Archaeological records suggest that the first Chinese swords were of bronze and were made during the Shang Dynasty (c.1700 BCE – c.1100 BCE). This period puts Chinese sword origins in line with European origins. Straight and double-edged Chinese swords (jian) date from the 7th Century BCE. The Chinese Jian was used by the people of Japan between the 3rd and 6th Century BCE before Japanese people began to adopt Korean swords and then develop their own famous designs.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368CE – 1644CE) swords were less prominent on Chinese battlefields due to the preference for a variety of bows and polearms. The popularity of polearms also meant that Chinese swords tended to be short one handed weapons. Nonetheless, the wealth of the Ming Dynasty brought a wide variety of new sword designs...

We have two mulberry trees in our garden but I shall concentrate on one. The fact that the are two mulberry trees is an early indication that the mulberry tree readily seeds, saplings shoot and a new tree roots itself. Officially the mulberry belongs to the Moraceae family. It is a deciduous tree and the berries are classified as a fruit. The mulberry is not an indigenous tree in South Africa; there are many varieties of mulberry and the chief one is the white mulberry of China (which is what you are likely to find in Johannesburg Gardens). This is called the Morus Alba and although the berries purple, in unripened state the berries are white (hence Alba). 

The trunk of the Mulberry Tree

My chosen mulberry tree sits in the opposite corner of our stand in Observatory Extension. By opposite I mean that it is a boundary marker. It's a large spreading tree, possibly (and I guess here) about 10 or 12 meters in height. At this time of the year, the season of the berry (the luscious purple fruit) is over and the large distinctive leaves are turning a lemony yellow.

The leaves are serrated. My online research (environment.gov.za) informs us that the mulberry is regarded as an invasive species and is classified as a weed in South Africa. It fits into category 3 on the list of "we really...

In the article below, journalist Lucille Davie looks at the restoration of the majestic old Reserve Bank Building in the Johannesburg CBD. The article was first published on the City of Joburg's website on 1 December 2005. Click here to view more of Davie's writing.

The Gauteng legislature got it for R1 in 2002, and now they’re spending R38-million on the building to restore it to its 1930s splendour.

The Old Reserve Bank Building, known now as Matlotlo House, built in 1938 on the corner of Simmonds and Fox streets, is a Gordon Leith design and just beautiful.

Old Reserve Bank from above (The Heritage Portal)

Walking into the building, one is drawn upwards into its beautiful, four-storey volume foyer, with ceiling shaped in the form of a dome, open at the top but originally filled with glass. The dome is supported by marble pillars, behind which are alcoves with vaulted roofs – quite breathtaking. The floor is an expanse of Italian marble.

At three storeys the building stands modestly on the corner, its classical columns and perfectly laid granite slabs offset by a large recessed “bird’s bath” above the impressive moulded, metal front door.

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Today I browsed my recipe book collection and randomly pulled out a thin paper cover recipe book called The Caltex Recipe Collection (published in about 1983 by Caltex). The book is a compilation of recipes from the Caltex Recipe Calendar series over the period 1979 to 1982.

Book Cover

The 1982 calendar presented recipes from 12 South African restaurants with drawings of the restaurants by the Cape Town artist Christiane Janssens.

I was delighted to find that Norman's Grill, a choice place for LM prawns, was one of twelve South African restaurants selected. Norman's Grill was located in the Grand Station Hotel at 302 Main Street in Jeppestown. Finding this particular page is poignant as in 2019 it was lost to fire and Norman's had passed on and his restaurant was no more. In 1986 the building was awarded a Johannesburg 100 blue plaque by the Simon van der Stel Foundation. I have fond memories of the ultimate seafood feast at Norman Gaffen's Grill in the 1970s and 80s. So at this time of anxiety it is a small pleasure to remember Norman's Grill and to unearth four of Norman's recipes. Our at home holiday is a good time to rediscover old recipe  books.

A Norman's Grill Recipe

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This tree is one of those eternal landmarks of my front garden. It creates shade and one can mark the seasons by the performance of the tree, whether it's the berries on the ground in autumn or the lilac flowers on the tree (spring) which then drop their small flowers in light off-white profusion (autumn). The falling blossoms create a floral carpet on the lawn. The flowers appear in the spring and have a light scent but by this time of the year (late March) have given way to the berry fruit. The prolific seeds produce small yellow round berries, several in a cluster on a stalk. In the photo below, berries are still on the tree. Come April they will fall and blanket the lawn and we take out a rake to sweep up the berry clusters. A single tree produces huge mounds of berries.

The berries hang on a cluster around a stalk

Each Berry has the ability to produce a new tree shoot. It's a tree that quickly seeds itself and is a fast growing trees. The berries are highly toxic to children, dogs and other domestic animals but goats have been known to eat the berries and survive when there is no other grass or food for survival. It is one of those trees where you have...

This piece was written on Day 1 of our 21 day stay home in the fight against the Corona virus. I have decided to try to learn something new about our garden and home and to share my writing with Heritage Portal readers during this time of quiet introspection and anxiety. We may discover that the small things within our own multiple worlds matter more than the large events beyond our control.

I photographed the lovely evergreen Pepper tree in a corner of my garden in Observatory, Johannesburg. Its correct name is Schinus Molle (see Photographic Guide to the Trees of Southern Africa by Braam van Wyk, Piet van Wyk and Ben-Erik van Wyk, Briza publications, 2000, page 278). It is also familiarly known as a Peperboom. It is an evergreen tree and so gives pleasure throughout the year. It is large... the height must be about 15 meters (50 feet). It is a tree that gives shade and solace.

There are several names for this tree: Peruvian pepper, American pepper, Californian pepper etc.

The evergreen Pepper tree in my garden

It is called a pepper tree because it produces small white flowers which then turn into small pink (reddish) fruits. The fruit resembles little red peppercorns which can be used as a pepper substitute but the authorities say not to be eaten in large quantities. In South...

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.

Irving Lissoos earns his living as a highly respected, specialist urologist. He consults and operates from Milpark Hospital. But his life embraces other enthusiasms, among them a love of Johannesburg, partially illustrated by his membership of the Parktown and Westcliff Heritage Trust. Lissoos’s guided tours through Joburg’s old cemeteries in Braamfontein and Brixton are always sell outs. Lissoos lives in Victory Park. He grew up in Berea, attended Yeoville Boys’ and King Edward’s schools. I arrived in his rooms one day armed with a tape recorder and one or two simple questions, asking him to talk about his early life. Nothing had been planned. He quite spontaneously and easily advanced down ‘memory lane.’ He told me with many chuckles and obvious reminiscent enjoyment, about a social existence, the world of his childhood and youth, which no longer exists:

Braamfontein Cemetery (The Heritage Portal)

‘My mom was born in London. Her father was a cabinet maker who came to Johannesburg just after the turn of the 20th century. She went to school in London but never got a chance to...

A 1:48 scale model of the Type VIIC German U-boat “U-96” was donated to the Museum in September 2019. The model is a true representation of the original submarine used in the Second World War (1939 – 1945) and was constructed by the donor, Mr Brian Echstein (see image above).

The Importance of the Donation

The original U-96 played a major role in the Battle of the Atlantic, a vital campaign of the Second World War. This campaign arose as a result of the requirement for Britain to sustain herself through strategic supplies sent by ship from her dominions and colonies around the world and, more importantly, from North America. The termination of this supply line would have eventually starved Britain and forced her to make terms with Germany. Adm Karl Donitz, commander of the German U-boat force, recognised the strategic importance of the U-boat and was of the firm opinion that this aim could be achieved with 300 U-boats on station in the Atlantic.

Supply routes to Britain 1941 (Wiki Commons)

The development of the U-boat was based on the following considerations: Firstly, Allied merchant shipping was the principle target and should be attacked with no restrictions; secondly, operations should be carried according to the strategy of tonnage sunk exceeding that of tonnage constructed. This would eventually strangle Allied...

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.

During those terrible, destructive seconds in a microlight crash, the aircraft’s aluminium tail strut is driven through the pilot’s chest and out of his back, narrowly missing his heart. The strut has to be sawn shorter in order to load the man onto the ambulance helicopter. He’s flown to Johannesburg Hospital directly into the care of the Trauma Unit. Photographs of the man on an operating table put one in mind of the results of medieval jousts between lance bearing knights. One wonders, how can anyone survive such an accident? Today he’s flying again, once more instructing learner pilots. To what agency does that man owe his life? It’s a question that might well be asked by Joburg bomb victims during the eighties, by those hundreds of poisoned schoolgirls, by the survivors of the Ellis Park soccer disaster who were attended to and rendered safe, in a super efficient manner.

Johannesburg Hospital (The Heritage Portal)

Ken Boffard, Professor and Clinical Head, Department of Surgery, University of the Witwatersrand, which incorporates one of the world’s foremost trauma...

You may have noticed a quaint stone wall with two decrepit wooden gates on Louis Botha Avenue between Acorn Lane and Death Bend. Or perhaps the row of magnificent plane trees just behind the wall caught your attention as you navigated this most notorious of Joburg roads. If you were brought to a stop in traffic, you may have even looked beyond the wall and the trees and seen an imposing double storey property in the distance, and wondered how it came to be built here.

Louis Botha Avenue entrance and stone wall (Brett McDougall)

This large property, consisting of ten Houghton erven (or part thereof), was consolidated by Mrs FM Bagley between 1922 and 1925, with the main dwelling being built during this time on erf 906.

No details of the original owner, Mrs Bagley, have been found, but the name appears against a number of Houghton properties in the valuation rolls of the 1920s and 30s, so it is possible that Bagley was a property speculator. The property was purchased by Mrs A Block in the late 1920s. Ann Block was born Ann Hillman, and she married Isidore Jack Block in 1924. The dashingly handsome Isidore Block was born in 1893, and educated at St John’s College, Houghton...