Johannesburg

As we enter silly season I have been warned to be brief. No one has time to read long pages of diatribes against those who own wonderful old buildings and don’t maintain them. I am just back from a week in Cape Town, travelling there by train. The most disgusting views of Johannesburg came from the eastern section behind the Art Gallery where literally tons of filth are simply pushed over the side from what used to Union Grounds. This continues for some way. Clearly no one ever dreams of cleaning alongside the railway line, but any visitor would imagine they enter Joburg via a rubbish tip. The train goes fast enough to miss seeing the rats and smelling what must be a revolting mix of rotting refuse and urine. Leaving and approaching Cape Town is not like this.

The Johannesburg Art Gallery (The Heritage Portal)

The one rewarding part of the Johannesburg exit was seeing the Kensington Flats still standing. These provided accommodation to Milner’s teachers who were all Oxford graduates. Several went on to head Potchefstroom Boys High, Jeppe Boys High and Pretoria Boys High. One decided to follow Maria Montessori and set up her own primary school – St Katherine’s in Parktown.

Changing our name to Johannesburg has already involved us in other areas. The New...

My story begins in Bremen Town Hall where I was invited to celebrate "10 years of Democracy in South Africa". There I got to know the Bremer author Heinz Gustafsson, who had just presented his book “Namibia, Bremen and Germany, a Rocky Road to Friendship”. We started talking and I realised we both shared a passion for Africa. I told him about our pilot project (with the local Rotarians and the teachers of the "St. Enda's School" in Hillbrow) to give economically disadvantaged students vocational training and he spoke about his new project, the book "South Africa and Germany, looking for common roots".

He asked me if I could help him in the search for sources mentioning “the Jeppe Brothers”. I said yes not knowing where this would lead! Later, when the first documents were procured and the mountain of paper on my desk grew, I asked what he still needed for his book and he answered that he now had more than enough material. I enquired what would happen to the remaining papers remarking that they were too good to be disposed of. He grinned and said: ‘Why don’t you think about writing your own book"? Thus began my thrilling research adventure!

I began by looking at the life story of the Rostock seed dealer Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jeppe (*1792-1852) and his descendants. As I only knew about his three sons I thought it would be a relatively simple project. I contacted the Chamber of Commerce in Rostock but...

By now most Joburgers will be aware that on 30 September 2015 the historic Rand Club shut its doors. Whether this move is temporary or permanent is a matter of debate but there is one man who believes emphatically that the best days of the Club are ahead. That man is Wilson Mphaga, the larger than life personality who has welcomed members and guests to the Rand Club for the past decade and a half. Earlier this week we were lucky enough to sit down and chat with the man that many have come to know as the ‘Face of the Club’.

Wilson Mphaga in his 'office' at the entrance to the Rand Club

Wilson’s career at the Rand Club began in 1983 after a successful interview for a position looking after members who stayed overnight on the top floors of the Club. This was where he learned how to relate and banter with members in a friendly and professional way. One member he got to know particularly well was a doctor who worked at Baragwanath Hospital. Wilson recalls proudly that the doctor loved the service and facilities of the Club so much that he made it his permanent home.

After a number of years establishing his reputation among staff and members, Wilson was offered...

In the article below Kathy Munro, Associate Professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, unpacks the layers of the wonderful friendship between Mohandas Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach. The piece was inspired by the unveiling of a statue of the two men in Rusne Lithuania in October 2015. Kathy also asks whether it is time for a similar statue to be created and unveiled in Johannesburg.

Friday 2nd October was Mohandas Gandhi’s birthday. The man who became the great Mahatma Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar, Gujarat, Western India to a Hindu merchant class family. Some two years later in 1871 (1st March) Herman Kallenbach  was born in 1871 in Žemaičių Naumiestis in the  Russian empire (today Lithuania) as the third eldest out of seven children of a German-Jewish family. His father was a Hebrew teacher and, later, a timber merchant.

Gandhi became a lawyer and studied law at the Inner temple in London. Kallenbach became an architect and studied architecture in Stuttgart and Munich. Gandhi first arrived in South Africa in 1893 and left to return permanently to India in 1914. He was assassinated in 1948.       Kallenbach emigrated to South Africa in 1896 to join his uncles and practised successfully as an architect in Johannesburg over the period 1896 to 1945 the date of his death. Kallenbach’s niece Hanna Lazar transported his ashes to Israel for burial on the Kibbutz Degania.

Gandhi married and had four sons and many grandchildren, great grandchildren and...