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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Mayibuye planned a massive onslaught

Jul 26, 2013

Mayibuye planned a massive onslaught

In the early 1960s, the African National Congress (ANC) and its armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), planned to bring into South Africa 7 000 men and arms to fight the apartheid government, via air and sea. But instead, a much smaller operation took place: it brought in arms via a tourist truck, making 40 trips in all. The Africa Hinterland Camping Safaris truck has been recovered and is now parked at its final destination: Liliesleaf in Rivonia, which had been the headquarter

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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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MaSisulu, one of Jozi's most famous

Dec 27, 2008

MaSisulu, one of Jozi's most famous

Albertina Sisulu, or MaSisulu, the anti-apartheid stalwart, midwife, beloved member of the ANC, and devoted wife of the late Walter, has spent most of her life in Johannesburg. She married Walter in 1944 at the age of 26, and her 59-year marriage to him endured despite enormous hardships - photographs of the two of them walking hand-in-hand or her hand through his arm, leave no doubt as to their love for one another. Johannesburg and Gauteng have honoured her, one of their mo

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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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Mar 27, 2005

The day the bus went into the Westdene dam

One of the survivors of the Westdene Dam disaster that occurred 20 years ago remembers that there were many things different about the day before the bus went into the dam. Eurika du Plessis, saved by her brother when a double-decker Hoerskool Vorentoe school bus plunged into the dam and 42 children drowned, says that usually her fellow classmates were normally loud and noisy on the bus ride home, but for some reason that day there was just quiet conversation upstairs, while

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Mar 23, 2004

Hollard saves Arcadia and gets the best view around

Lionel Phillips would surely approve of the new developments at his former mansion, Villa Arcadia, in Parktown. The house and property of 16 acres of prime real estate has been bought by Hollard Insurance and is to be developed into their future office complex with a careful balance between heritage and modern use. And in the process, the mansion, designed by Herbert Baker, and believed to be his practice run for the Union Buildings in Pretoria, is to be saved from almost cer

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Herman Charles Bosman, Joburg man

Jan 21, 2004

Herman Charles Bosman, Joburg man

Herman Charles Bosman watched as they demolished the old Magistrate's Courts in downtown Joburg. And felt "a kind of silent fury". He wrote in his essay Old Johannesburg is Vanishing that the municipality had "no understanding of Johannesburg, no veneration for this city". He went on: "I don't suppose, for one thing, that they've got too many genuine Joh'burg old-timers on the Council. Otherwise we wouldn't have every Johannesburg building turned over to a demolition-gang the

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Sarah Baartman, at rest at last

Aug 8, 2002

Sarah Baartman, at rest at last

Sarah Baartman, displayed as a freak because of her unusual physical features, was finally laid to rest 187 years after she left Cape Town for London. Her remains were buried on Women’s Day, 9 August 2002, in the area of her birth, the Gamtoos River Valley in the Eastern Cape. Baartman was born in 1789. She was working as a slave in Cape Town when she was “discovered” by British ship’s doctor William Dunlop, who persuaded her to travel with him to England. We’ll never know wh

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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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