Everyone knows Grocott’s Mail sells newspapers, but pedestrians pass by the building every day with no idea of what else happens at number 40 High Street. Deep in the heart of the building, cobblers mend shoes, seamstresses bring cherished clothes back to life and baobab trees are grown out of wire.
Veliti Dolohle:
Everyone knows Grocott’s Mail sells newspapers, but pedestrians pass by the building every day with no idea of what else happens at number 40 High Street. Deep in the heart of the building, cobblers mend shoes, seamstresses bring cherished clothes back to life and baobab trees are grown out of wire.
Veliti Dolohle:
Under the creaky pine floorboards sits Veliti Qolohle. Although seven years younger, his stature and mannerisms resemble an aging Muhammad Ali. One Friday night 40 years ago, when he was just 21-yearsold, he was walking with his girlfriend through a township when someone threw a rock at him, hitting him on the head.
Since then Qolohle has been partially paralysed on the right side of his body and suffers from partial hearing impairment in both ears. Six months ago he finally got out of his wheelchair.
Once a loader in the coal mines in Newcastle, since 1971 Qolohle has made shoes on High Street, outside what is now Marvic’s Fruit and Veg.
He learnt the skill from watching his father,a shoemaker on the Eastern Cape farms. In 2003 he moved into the Grocott’s basement. “This is better than the streets, when I made new shoes the wind used to dirty my work.” He pays just R100 a month rent. “White men and coloured men come here to support me. Black people come from the farms far away. They know me,” he says proudly.
“I work hard, I must feed my family,” says the father of nine and grandfather of one. In his spare time he teaches others from the township at Gadra to mend and make shoes. Qolohle is right-handed but works with his left.
A shoe takes about four hours to make and costs R150. “It’s difficult to work fast with one hand,” he says. “I want to say thank you to Mr Grocott, he took me from that bad place to this nice place.” Beside him in the basement laughter can be heard.
Linda January:
Linda January jokes around with two colleagues on sewing machines. “I’m a doctor of traditional African clothing,” she says. They’re very busy this time of the year, making ball gowns and doing alterations for all the matric farewells.
“I love my job. When I was eight my mum bought me a beautiful pink dress with an elastic waistband. I like pink even now. I took scissors and cut it into two pieces; a skirt and a top. She was so angry but my aunty said to her. ‘She will be a dressmaker one day.’”
At 19 she enrolled in a dressmaking course in King William’s Town. After working at Birch’s factory in the township for 10 years, she did alterations from her home in Extension 8 for the next three. She describes her time operating from home as difficult.
“Maybe I would make R10 a day,” she says. She still recalls the life changing phone call she received from Grocott’s Mail two years ago.
“I got the call at 1pm, and I started work the same day. I said thank you God. I didn’t even have taxi money; I had to borrow from my neighbour.” She also pays R100 a month for rent. “Business is too good. I have to take work home with me most nights,” she says. “Rich people, poor people, all the people come here. Even the magistrates’ judges.”
January thanks Grocott’s for helping her support herself and her four children. Her 25-year-old daughter is a fashion designer in Port Elizabeth. Pastor Freddie Arendse recommended she move into the Grocott’s building two years ago.
Corrie Botha:
It looks like there is a thunderstorm in the room next door. Through the old cracked door, bolts of blindingly bright lights flicker and sparks can be seen. Corrie Botha is wearing leather workers’ boots, shorts and a steel welding helmet.
He wears the helmet when welding to avoid a condition called arc eye. “It’s like blisters in your eyes,” he says. He started his metal work company “Botha’s projects,” at Grocott’s Mail eight months ago when he was retrenched from a steel company when the industry was struggling.
But he says losing his job was the best thing that ever happened to him. Botha specialises in security devices including gates and motors, intercom systems and burglar guards. “It’s going well, very well, I’m getting a lot of work,” he says. He’s very proud of his electric fence system.
It has 8 000 volts but no amps. “Amps are the part that will kill you. With mine you won’t die, but it shocks the shit out of you,” he says. At the moment he is busy cementing the floor of his room, painting walls and putting up chipboard dividers. “In order to do good work you need a good workspace,” he explains.
Freddie Arendse:
Freddie Arendse is surrounded by giraffes, soap dishes, lampshades, key rings and other wire sculptures. He tiptoes through coils of galvanised wire to a chair in the middle of his small room at the back of the Grocott’s Mail car park, a pair of pliers in his hand.
He moved into the building “some time before Grocott’s and Rhodes joined”. Arendse started in front of Clicks in 1996 but was later moved by the municipality to a stall in Church Square across the road from Pep. He says he can’t make his wire work on the street any more.
“I’m a well-known person by people here. They come to me, disturb me, and talk to me. They want to discuss the Bible. Tourists don’t come here like they used to,” he says. “I think the global recession affected us very much.”
He found wire sculpting after working as a clerk for a reinforcing steel company. “When they closed down I had no work, I had to create my own employment.” It takes Arendse an entire day to manufacture a small wire baobab tree. “It’s very painful when you work all day and sell it for just R150.”
But making wire sculptures is his second job. “First I do the work of God.” Three years ago he went to Bible school and became a pastor. “As I pastor I work from Monday to Monday 24 hours a day.” Once a week he is a facilitator at the River of Life beading programme, teaching sewing and beading to selected township women.
Arsendse is also a board member of the Dakawa community centre. On Fridays he does two-hour services at the prison and on Sundays he leads services at Duna Library in Joza as pastor of the Rock of Ages Christian Church International. He also preaches on Radio Grahamstown twice a month.
Louise Vale, the general manager of Grocott’s Mail says, “Grocott’s is a community organisation.” She believes the paper has a responsibility to make contributions to the development of the community.
They opened the unused basement to entrepreneurs five years ago, letting out the spaces at minimal cost, allowing them to earn a living.
She says for 141 years, “Grocott’s Mail has always been an organisation that tries to give back as much as they can to the community. We hope to continue in this spirit.”
