Book of the Month Dec 2011

From Groot Constantia to Google : 1685 to 2010 : a colourful history of brands and branding in South Africa

A history of brands and branding in South Africa uses a narrative of South Africa's social, economic and political history and consumer culture as a backdrop to the stories of many of our most recognised brands both old and new
With over a thousand pictures and illustrations including advertisements, brand registrations, products, consumer culture and moments in history, many never published before, the book is a colourful and fascinating read. It will be picked up and explored again and again for interesting did-you-knows, but also valuable insights into branding, advertising and intellectual property protection over the years.
Many of the 400-plus brands recorded in this book are over 100 years old. One of these - Groot Constantia, which dates back to 1685, was exporting to Europe as early as the 1700's. A favourite tipple of Napoleon during his exile on St Helena it was also favoured by King Louis Philippe of France.
Google by contrast is a teenager, yet recognised as one of the top four most valuable brands in the world.
The opportunity to build brands moved to another level with the coming of media advertising. Our first newspaper was the bilingual Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser or Kaapsche Stads Courant en Afrikaansche Berigter, launched on Saturday August 16, 1800. It was owned by slave dealers and privateers Alexander Walker and John Robertson - sole printers to the corrupt Governor Sir George Yong. Space was sold for sixpence a column inch and broked for two or three pence more. Almost 100 years later the first advertising agency, SA Advertising Contractors, was launched in Cape Town in 1899 and continues, after many name and ownership changes to the present day. Brand advertising expenditure in 2010 exceeded 26 billion rand
The colourful characters, brands and events that helped shape South Africa and turn it into the democratic commercial powerhouse of Africa are all part of this remarkable story that takes us from Groot Constantia to Google and a world in which branding is recognised as the most significant gift that commerce has ever made to popular culture.

Source : From Groot Constantia to Google : 1685 to 2010 : a colourful history of brands and branding in South Africa

Book of the Month Nov 2011

Many lives : 150 years of being Indian in South Africa / Goolam Vahed, Ashwin Desai, Thembisa Waetjen.
The stories of heritage affect the senses and emotions as much as the intellect. They combine to make up a shared memory that gives meaning to identity in the present.
The importance of individual stories is also in their power to surprise and contradict, as much as to affirm, what we have been taught about the past. The images presented here invite the opportunity to look into faces, to see gestures, poses, movement and expressions of people who have been captured by the camera and held fast in time.
These faces challenge us to meet them on their own terms, to try and imagine social conditions different from our own. They challenge us to see them in three dimensions.
Where there is a tendency to imagine the past as mired in hardship and struggle against the liberated present, these visual stories insist that the past held its joys and creativity and that the challenges of poverty and inequality continue in the present.
This book, spanning the 150 years since the arrival of the first Indian indentured labourers in Natal, illustrates the power of photographs. Its lens is wide as it captures the social, the economic, the political, and the religious. It invites readers to see beyond images to the human experience in the photographs.
While the focus is broad, this collection of over 700 photographs does not ignore life's minutiae. The strength of the book lies in the interweaving of big events with the everyday as the photographs are brought to life with well researched vignettes that provide context and meaning. As it explores the many lives of Indian South Africans, this collection challenges the partitioning of identity, while acknowledging its pull and protective presence.
The story is a beguiling one that will provoke feelings of nostalgia, dissonance and intrigue, anger and hilarity, as the pages peel back history to reveal stories of passion and pain, the ordinary and the courageous

Source : Many lives : 150 years of being Indian in South Africa / Goolam Vahed, Ashwin Desai, Thembisa Waetjen.

Book of the Month October 2011

South African timber buildings : a craft revived / by Rosemary Rudd
Because this book is a pictorial 'journal' of the history of timber construction, it begins with the first wood and iron structures in the country - some ordered from European catalogues - dating back to the early 1800's. Many of these historical buildings still exist today, having been lovingly restored and well maintained. Pleasingly, a number of them have been declared National Monuments. However, a vast number have been destroyed by greedy developers or damaged by vandals. It is highly likely that few, if any, of these charming old buildings will exist beyond the next decade of two and some people regard this as our ' dying heritage'
As the objective of the book was to attempt to change people's perceptions of timber construction, it ends with pictures of some of the truly beautiful homes currently being built right throughout South Africa. The versatility and durability of timber construction needs to be brought to the attention of consumers, and this book seeks to do just that.
.Something about the author:
Rosemary Budd was born in Ndola, Zambia in 1956. Since then she has lived in Zimbabwe (where she completed her education), in England and South Africa, believing that Cape Town is one of the most spectacular places in the world. She has an abiding love of animals, especially cats, and lives in Kommetjie with her husband Keith and their cat Raffles.
She has diplomas in Small Business Management, Business Enterprise Studies, Public Relations and Journalism, and says that her 12 year tenure with the Timber Frame Builders Association was some of the most rewarding work she has ever undertaken.
Another of Rosemary's passions is The Chaeli Campaign - a non-profit organisation, of which she was a founder member. The Chaeili Campaign, powered by children, administered by adults, whose mantra is "mobilising the minds and bodies of disabled children", raises funds for wheel-chair needy children throughout South Africa.

Source : South African timber buildings : a craft revived / by Rosemary Budd.

Book of the Month September 2011

The motorist's paradise : early motoring in and around Cape Town / Bob Johnston, Derek Stuart-Findlay

The spectacular scenery of Cape town's mountains and seascapes has fascinated its citizens and visitors for centuries.

This is the story of how the city's early motorists opened up the Cape Peninsula and its hinterland.

Bob Johnston, the author of the definitive pictorial history, "Early motoring in South Africa," and Derek Stuart-Findlay now reveal the sotry of the building of the All-Round-the Cape-Peninsula Road, the first motor journeys over the mountain passes to inland towns and coastal villages and incredible journeys commencing from or ending in Africa's southernmost city.

Above this is the story of many of the personalities involved in these adventures. Over 450 historic photographs reflect the challenges, frustrations and humour involved in the first 40 years of motoring in and around the Mother City.

Source : The motorist's paradise : early motoring in and around Cape Town / Bob Johnston, Derek Stuart-Findlay

Women : South Africans of Indian origin / Devi Moodley Rajab ; portraits by Ranjith Kally ; edited by Kalim Rajab

150 Years after the first Indian indentured labourers to South Africa, our society's wider history has not escaped the risk of distortions and omissions that come from excluding critical voices and players in our struggle for democracy.
Featuring profiles by die award-winning academic and columnist Devi Moodley Rajab and portraits by the iconic South African photographer Ranjith Kally, Women : South Africans of Indian origin steps into a critical gap in our understanding of our evolution into a society united in its diversity. The changing status of Indian women over the last century and a half has been a remarkable journey of triumph over struggle.
For large periods of the country's history, such women were largely invisible within society. The taboos of culture, religion and other societal norms kept them locked in the restrictive duties of domesticity for decades. Post-apartheid freedom has, however, allowed for a renaissance among women achievers in the Indian community and this book is an attempt to tell their stories and chart some areas of the development of such women, from indenture to contemporary times.
The personal narratives in this book take the reader into the heart, home and hopes of women often ignored in public discourse. These narratives also take us ever so gently into a rich cultural milieu - not just the aromatic smells of spices of the glittering jewellery, but lives textured beyond clichés of subservience and dominance. These are narratives of the resilience of a culture that transcended the humiliation of the system of indenture to thrive in a democracy.
Above all, this is a celebration of the spirit of South African women of Indian origin and of the joy of breaking free.

Source : Women : South Africans of Indian origin. /Devi Moodley Rajab

Book of the Month July 2011

Tukkie-rugby by die millennium© 2000 / Prof. Flip van der Watt

Die Pretoria Centre of the Transvaal University College (TUC) is in Februarie 1908 gevestig. In daardie jaar het die kollege slegs vier dosente en 32 studente gehad. Die verkorte Afrikaanse naam van die kollege, TUK, het as Tuks en Tukkies bly voortbestaan nadat die kollege 'n volwaardige universiteit, die Universiteit van Pretoria, geword het. Tuks het oor die volgende nege dekades gegroei tot die grootste residensiële universiteit in die land. Dit bied die wydste spektrum van opleidingsrigings aan en het bekendheid as 'n tersiêre opleiding van besondere statuur verwerf.

'n Universiteit se opleiding en invloed is egter nie tot die akademiese terrein beperk nie. Sy gegradueerdes word die leiers op vele lewensterreine in die samelewing. Sy studente word gevorm deur die talryke situasies wat hulle in koshuise, verenigings en die algemene studentelewe ervaar. Dit is onmiskenbaar dat sportdeelname - as speler, aktiewe ondersteuner of selfs passiewe toeskouer - ook talle situasies skep wat 'n vormende invloed op die student het en tot voorbereiding vir volwaardige deelname in die volwasse gemeenskap bydra.

Rugby het oor die afgelope nege dekades 'n besondere belangrike plek aan die Universiteit geniet. Die deelname van die Universiteit se rugbyspanne aan die plaaslike ligakompetsies en intervarsities het grootskaalse belangstelling van studente, oudstudente, ouers en die plaaslike gemeenskap geniet. 'n Groot getal Tukkie-studente asook 'n aaantal dosente het provinsiale en nasionale kleure verwerf. Hierdie bydraes verdien erkenning, minstens deur die boekstawing daarvan.

Ek betuig graag my dank aan prof. Flip van der Watt wat hierdie boek op my versoek saamgestel het, sowel as aan die persone wat op welwillende wyse gegewens aan hom beskikbaar gestel het.

Johan van Zyl

Visekanselier en Rektor

Bron : Tukkie-rugby by die millennium© 2000 / Flip van der Watt

Book of the Month June 2011

Pioneers of the Waterberg : a photographic journey / compiled by Elizabeth Hunter

I was born in the Waterberg. My mother was born in the Waterberg ast 24 Rivers, where I am living at present. My grandparents came to the Waterberg before the Boer war in the 1890's. The house that I am staying in, on the farm 24 Rivers, was built 100 years ago, in 1910, after my grandparents had been married for several years. My grandparents met in South Africa during the Boer war.

Today 24 Rivers belongs to my siblings an me. Even though we didn't live here permanently as children we spent most of our holidays either here, or down in the "Bushveld" on a farm near Ellisras (now Lephalale) called Toulon.

One of my earliest memories is going from 24 Rivers to Toulon, near present-day Laphalale, by ox wagon, a trip that takes an hour today, but about three or four days then ... or more depending on the number of "outspans" along the way. There WERE cars at the time, but Ted Davidson, my grandfather (who we knew as Gabbo), preferred to go by ox wagon. The wagon that had at one stage belonged to Gen. Louis Botha was, in the beginning, the family's only form of transport. It was use for business and pleasure. The ox wagon is still there today, outspanned for the last time in front of the house at 24 Rivers.

An important part of any stay at 24 Rivers was looking at the photograph albums, particularly the photographs of early trips to the Bushveld by wagon. We still have those albums and they need to be preserved - hence this book.

I have beenl iving here semi-permanently for the past five years, during which I have explored some of the places that were travelled all those years ago by ox wagon, I have seen some of the "wagon roads" and I have understood the love that Gabbo had for these beautiful and mysterious ancient mountains.

I have tried to capture the story told in wonderful old photgraphs, of courage and adventure, of fortitude and faith, of zest for life and love of the Waterberg and its people. I have used text from my aunt Elizabeth Clarke's book on the family history, "Waterberg Valley" and some of her poems and paintings to tell the story. I have also included newspaper articles and various writings and poems by a number of other people, all helping to create the rich tapestry that makes the story of Twenty Four Rivers worth telling

Source : Pioneers of the Waterberg : a photographic journey / compiled by Elizabeth Hunter

Book of the Month May 2011

Historic farms of South Africa : the wool, the wheat and the wine of the 17 th and 18 th centuries / Dorothea Fairbridge

In the seventeenth century of which Miss Fairbridge wrote in this, the last volume which will appear under her name, it was not uncommon for the Printer to address the Reader. My own excuse in adding these few words to this book is the excuse of intimate friendship which covered a period of some fourteen years, which allowed me to watch, often at a distance., Miss Fairbridge at work, and which has in the end honoured me by making me her literary executor. Miss Fairbridge was what her books are. She was the most indomitable of women having all the magnanimity of outlook which is born in big spaces. Moreover her passionate love of the country in which she was born added force to her natural courage and gave also that sense of almost overwhelming spontaneity to the picturesque detail and sincerity to the background of her work. Few people know that she had already received the warning of what was destined in the end to prove fatal, before she undertook the journey she called "The Pilgrim' way in South Africa" In the book which came of it and which bore that name, there is not a sign of failing powers. On the contrary the dominant note is the exhilaration of the surroundings through which she passed ; her call of faith in South Africa was never clearer. The Pilgrams' Way was in a sense the sequel of Historic Houses of South Africa, and in that same sense this posthumous volume Historic Farms of South Africa is the continuation of both of them. I know she would wish it so to be regarded All those who read it in South Africa will realize that in this volume the central point is the personality of Willem Adriaan van der Stel, the Cape Governor of 1700, who was the object of a determined conspiracy on the part of Adam Tas, Huysing, and other burghers of the day. It will not be forgotten that it quicken interest in him and did much to remove the slur that had lain on his career in history. For her devotion to South Africa was ever quick to discover romance everywhere, but her keen historical sense was as sure never to pervert it. Van der Stel was and is the central point of the book, but gradually Miss Fairbridge's interest in the writing of it grew outwards until in the end she rechristened it with the title which it bears. Had she lived the last signs of this change of scopes would have disappeared. As it is, if readers sometimes think the title a little too large for the book, they will remember what I now tell them and will see in it not a fault but only another sign of the expansiveness and wholeheartedness of the author. John Johnson 7 Oct 1931

Source : Historic Farms of South Africa : the wool, the wheat and the wine of the 17 th and 18 th centuries / Dorothea Fairbridge

Book of the Month April 2011

Brakdak : flatroofs in the Karoo / Gabriel Fagan

This book contains photographs with brief notes on flat-roofed vernacular architecture in the Karoo. Taken during the 1950's, they portray buildings and unspoilt village scenes, many of which have suffered severe changes during the last half-century. Although change is inevitable and irrevocable, almost any visit today reveals a deteriorated environment. So apart from the sheer pleasure of recalling these scenes, this book might, in a small way, contribute to a realization of the simple beauty lost, and to a will to regain it.

Something about the author:

Gabriel Fagan was born in Cape Town on 15 th November 1925, the second son of Henry Allan Fagan and Jessie Fagan. After obtaining a B.Arch degree in 1952 at the newly established architecture faculty of the University of Pretoria, he worked for twelve years as resident architect for Volkskas Bank. To supervise the widespread new and recycled bank buildings he bought a Piper Tripacer aircraft, which he hangared on the family's small holding an through extensive flying he learn to know the topography of the country and most of the small country villages and outlying farmsteads, also from the air. In 1964 he opened an office in Cape Town, where he still runs his architectural practice. In addition to some 200 restoration projects he has many distinctive contemporary buildings to his credit.

Source : Brakdak : flatroofs in the Karoo / Gabriel Fagan

Conversations with myself / Nelson Mandela

Conversations with myself gives readers access to the private man behind the public figure: from letters written in the darkest hours of Mandela's twenty-seven years of imprisonment to the draft of an unfinished sequel to Long Walk to Freedom. Here he is making notes and even doodling during meetings, or recording troubled dreams on the desk calendar of his cell on Robben Island; writing journals while on the run during the anti-apartheid struggles of the early 1960s, or conversing with friends in almost seventy hours of recorded conversations. In these pages he is neither an icon nor a saint; here he is like you and me

An intimate journey from the first stirrings of his political conscience to his galvanizing role on the world stage, Conversations with Myself is a rare change to spend time with Nelson Mandela the man, in his own voice: direct, clear, private.

Source : Conversations with myself / Nelson Mandela

Book of the Month Jan/Feb 2011

One love, ghoema beat : inside the Cape Town Carnival / photographs and text by John Edwin Mason

Each year the coloured working class of Cape Town celebrates itself in a spectacular, lively Carnival. Historian, photographer and musician John Edwin Mason spent three Carnival seasons with one troupe, the Pennsylvanians Crooning Minstrels, becoming an ' honorary member' and marching in full troupe gear, camera in hand. He came to know several other troupes, too, among them the Fabulous Woodstock Starlites.
Mason's unique position - as an outsider with and insider's point of view - allowed him a singular documentary perspective on this inimitable cultural tradition and the people who keep it alive. He explores the Cape Town Carnival's history and records its public and private sides from within the troupe, rather than from the sidelines.
As a result, One Love, Ghoema Beat reveals aspects that outsiders rarely see - band and choir rehearsals, life in the klopskamers (clubhouses) and the making of costumes and drums. With several short essays and superb photographs, this book offers a comprehensive look at the minstrel troupes that are the exuberant face of Cape Town's Carnival

.John Edwin Mason teaches African history and history of photography at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in the United States. He has written extensively on the history of Cape Town, an interest that led him, inevitably, to the New Year Carnival. In 2007, friends invited him to join the Pennsylvanians Crooning Minstrels, a leading troupe. Recognising the Carnival's cultural importance, he gladly accepted the offer and was able to document a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on the Pennsylvanians and other troupes. As a photographer, he also contributes regularly to music and motor-sports magazines.

Source : One love, ghoema beat : inside the Cape Town Carnival / photographs and text by John Edwin Mason