Lucille Davie | Expert Johannesburg Writer

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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!

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Deborah Darling's gone ogling

Aug 28, 2017

Deborah Darling's gone ogling

She used to be a tech writer. Now she's a style and wardrobe guru, having just thrown open the online doors of her Ogle Cafe. Deborah Chambers is tall, elegant, charming, silver-haired and 55. And you'd never guess that her stylish wardrobe comes mainly from charity shops. “You don’t have to spend a fortune to look good – it’s how you style it that matters,” she enthuses. She has two favourite charity shops, one on Louis Botha Avenue in Orange Grove, which she has been patron

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Horses at home in the suburbs

May 17, 2015

Horses at home in the suburbs

Horses grazing lustily in a lush meadow with a river running through it seems like a perfect rural scene. Except that it takes place in the middle of suburbia, opposite Delta Park in Craighall Park. I have seen these horses for some time, when I ride my mountain bike along the tranquil Braamfontein Spruit. I have wondered where they are stabled, so last month I followed them home. I cycled over the bridge, and up the path to Marlborough Avenue behind them, and they clop-clopp

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Mandela’s head rises in Howick

Jul 2, 2013

Mandela’s head rises in Howick

Nelson Mandela’s head rises dramatically from the ground on a small plot outside the village of Howick in KwaZulu-Natal. His face is sculpted in 50 thin steel columns, marking the spot where he was arrested in 1962. It was here, on 5 August 1962, that Mandela’s car was stopped by the security police, and his life took a completely different course. He was on his way back to Johannesburg after visiting Chief Albert Luthuli, at the time the president of the African National Con

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Joburg's Khoisan ancestors

Feb 2, 2011

Joburg's Khoisan ancestors

A short drive south of the city, some 10 kilometres outside the CBD, are remnants of Joburg's first settlement of Khoisan, South Africa's oldest people. They are to be found at the Eikenhof Khoisan Farm, portion 80, consisting of 247 hectares of land immediately south of the Klipriviersberg mountain, on the banks of the Klip River. The site has been occupied by Khoisan people for about 100 years, squeezed between several farms belonging to whites, who moved into the area from

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Apr 28, 2010

Wits scores its art museum

What do you do with 9 000 pieces of art? You build a 5 000m² museum and put them on glorious display, of course. This is exactly what Wits University is doing, in a dream come true for the custodians of this extraordinary art collection. That dream has been in the making since 2005 and is to be called the Wits Art Museum (WAM), previously the Wits Art Galleries. And where better to put it than in the university's cultural precinct on East Campus, at the former University Corn

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Mar 20, 2009

Mandela House opens in Soweto

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela stepped through the front door of her tiny house at 8115 Vilakazi Street in Orlando West this week, and re-lived sometimes painful memories. The restored Mandela House opened to the public on Thursday, 19 March. Madikizela-Mandela, her two daughters Zinzi and Zenani, and other family members were present. Nelson Mandela had moved into the house in 1946 with his first wife, Evelyn Mase, and in 1958 brought his second wife, Winnie, to live there. He re

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One day back in '63 at Liliesleaf

Jun 6, 2008

One day back in '63 at Liliesleaf

On hearing that they had got life sentences, Denis Goldberg shouted: "Life! Life is wonderful!" And life was wonderful on that day, 12 July 1964, because the Rivonia trialists had expected the death penalty, but Judge Quartus de Wet handed down four life sentences to each of the men instead. "All rationality aside, and for all our preparedness to die for freedom in South Africa, we started smiling in disbelief, at first, and complete relief as it sunk in that the judge said h

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The homecoming that wasn't

May 22, 2007

The homecoming that wasn't

In 1990 the apartheid exiles started coming home to their families. Tsietsi Mashinini, a Soweto student leader on 16 June 1976, came home to his family too . . . in a coffin. Unlike many other parents celebrating the return of their long-lost children, his mother, Nomkhitha Mashinini, had to testify that the bruised body was his: one eye was missing and he had a large wound behind his ear. He had died in Guinea, but she was never told what happened. "I am sorry he died when m

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Jan 10, 2005

Hastings Ndlovu's day too

The doctor interrupted his mid-morning tea break, rushed into the casualty section and was greeted by "a grisly scene". Lying on the stretcher was the body of a young boy dressed in school uniform, his head covered in blood, a gaping bullet wound exposing his brain. The doctor describes what he saw: ". . . a bullet wound to one side of his head, blood and brains spilling out of a large exit wound on the other side, the gurgle of death in his throat. Only later would I learn h

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Joburg's oldest buildings

Feb 21, 2003

Joburg's oldest buildings

Human settlement in Johannesburg goes back some 25 000 years, but when were the first brick buildings built, and how many still survive? The first structures to go up on the grassy plains that made up the site of early Johannesburg were a mix of tents and mud and reed huts, followed by iron and wood houses. It is believed that the first one of the first wooden city buildings was the Central Hotel, on the corner of Commissioner and Sauer Streets, according to researcher and ch

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May 2, 2002

Delta Park proves that exotics can be useful

Ecological purists would argue that all 'exotics', or alien trees or plants, should be removed from Johannesburg's public spaces - but the evidence proves that exotics do have a role to play. Delta Park, some 10 kilometres north-west of the city centre, is a 104-hectare green lung, mostly planted with exotics. "Delta Environmental Centre is living proof that exotics can co-exist happily with indigenous vegetation," says Geoff Lockwood, ornithologist, resident manager and educ

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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

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Hector Pieterson gets his memorial

Oct 24, 2001

Hector Pieterson gets his memorial

"I saw a child fall down. Under a shower of bullets I rushed forward and went for the picture. It had been a peaceful march, the children were told to disperse, they started singing Nkosi Sikelele. The police were ordered to shoot." These are the words of Sam Nzima, recalling the events of June 16, 1976 in Soweto. Hector Pieterson, a young boy, was shot. He was picked up by Mbuyisa Makhubo, who, together with Hector's sister, Antoinette, ran towards a press car, where he was

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