#AlanBuff

ALL WRITINGS

I have a BA HED (Higher Education Diploma), and a Tesol English 2nd Language Diploma. I have over 22 years’ teaching experience, and over 15 years’ writing experience, as a journalist in Johannesburg. For the past 3 years I have conducted tours of Joburg.

And when I’m not teaching or writing or conducting tours, I'll be taking in the Joburg vibes and events - it may be a book launch, an art exhibition opening, a touch of jazz, a talk on intriguing stuff . . . there's always something happening in this town, where I have lived for the past 36 years.

Come along on the journey with me - let's have fun exploring English and the city!

lucilledavie

Dec 1, 2019

Mornings in a graveyard

I spent the morning in a graveyard. Not just any graveyard, but the 54ha Braamfontein Cemetery, the city’s first, laid out in 1887. This is my third Sunday morning visit. Well, actually, it’s not a visit, it’s a headstone cleaning morning. And what fun it is, if you like graveyards, and history and stuff. I’ve cleaned five headstones of moss and algae so far, and brought alive people’s memories from 1897, and thereabouts. Two weeks ago I made the acquaintance of William James

215 views

lucilledavie

Jan 11, 2002

The search for Enoch Sontonga

An act of vandalism at Braamfontein Cemetery helped locate the missing grave of Enoch Sontonga, the man who wrote South Africa's national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika (God bless Africa). The discovery of the grave, now a national monument, ended months of patient and ingenious detective work by city officials, archeologists and historians. Sontonga, a teacher and lay preacher, wrote the first verse and chorus of the anthem as a hymn for his school choir. He died in obscurit

34 views

ALL WRITINGS

Mornings in a graveyard

The search for Enoch Sontonga

Get in touch