Finding peace in the vortex

Richard Welch lives in a boomed off enclave called Randview, on the edge of overpopulated Yeoville flatland. His house overlooks Lorentzville and adjacent suburbs. "I can see the old synagogue directly from up here, and the mosque. I hear the call to prayer every day."

A background of social and political engagement as an anti-apartheid activist and an educator, has contributed to Richard’s perspective that to live authentically in the South African context requires finding “the vortex” and making a place of peace within it. This philosophical orientation is the thread that connects the different strands of his life and serves as a barometer of the efficacy of his day to day decisions.

His eccentric home, constructed on ancient rock in the 1930s, is surrounded by a multi-layered garden which slopes downwards towards the valley. The unexpected interrelationship between trees, shrubs, flowers, herbs and vegetables, says something about Richard’s faith in creating a space for variety to thrive on its own terms.  A visitor remarked that the garden made him feel as though he was in the country, in the city.  “That made me so happy,” Richard beams, “because that is exactly what I have tried to do.”

The Welch garden is a haven of peace, attentively cultivated to balance the circumstances of his life in the second hand book trade and his proactive day-to-day engagement with the local community.

He offers a wealth of information about formal and informal traders from Yeoville to Bertrams and beyond, and knows where to buy anything from halaal Egyptian sausages to Congolese dried fish.  His culinary experiments and willingness to try out whatever new cuisine presents itself from diverse corners of the continent in his own kitchen, are notable. “There is a Congolese man who sells fish and meat and the kinds of vegetables and he is very keen to teach you how to cook the kind of food they eat in Central Africa. Then at the market you get all kinds of things that we as South Africans don't know how to cook, like Zimbabwean spinach, which is very different from our spinach. It is very, very thick and you have to boil it for a long time and then wash it and cut it finely, and then fry it..."

Richard owns an inimitable bookshop, Kalahari Books (named long before Kalahari Net came into being), a block away from Louis Botha Avenue, which is one of the major suburban arterial roads in Johannesburg, and the main road into the huge, historic township of Alexandra.  Here too, he aspires to foster a still place in the “centre of the storm” for customers to “follow their own strand of thought” and “find themselves through books.”

Unlike the pristine bookshops, set apart from the mainstream of life in suburban shopping malls, Richard's bookshop, known affectionately as the “Garret” is an old warehouse, accessed from the road by means of a ramp, and surrounded by small traders, light industry and suburban housing. I made a note of “Orchards Wheel and Tire”, “Jay-Jay's Car Wash”, “Mashi Rose Tombstones,” “E&W Steel Design”, “Burgess Plumbing”; “Vintage Clothing”; “Tonino's Pizzeria”.

Inside, books on shelves and in containers line the walls of the 180 square meters building, from concrete floor to corrugated iron ceiling.  A small wooden stairway leading to a narrow walkway assembled from steel, wood and hemp rope, runs alongside the upper part of two of walls. On the opposite side of the room, against the only wall with windows, there is a desk with a computer on it and a red noticeboard exhibiting a picture of the lady Parker; the cover of Laurie Lee's  ”I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning”, and a collection of family photographs.

Two well-worn old armchairs are positioned against a maroon wall beneath a picture of Gandhi as a young man, and an assortment of paintings and drawings by prominent South African artists:  Frans Claerhout; Pippa Skotness; Mary Hume; Godfrey Ndaba; and Norman Catherine.  On another stretch of wall, painted royal blue, there are posters advertising Samuel Becket's 'End Games' and “ Africa Mama Yo”, plays that Welch's actor son had performed in.   

Old metal street and construction signs hang from the frames of shelves: 'Bryanston Drive'; 'Pimm Street'; “Men working overhead (Werkmense besig bo)” bearing boxes and crates of books labeled in thick black ink: Peter Cheney; Howard Spring;Denis Wheatley; Frank G. Slaughter; Stephen King; Taylor Caldwell;  Dornford Yates; Medical Romances;  Shakespearian Studies; Crime Fiction…”

I sit opposite Richard on one of the armchairs. Traditional Indian flute music, and later, Czechoslovakian Gipsy Hip Hop play in the background. I ask him why he chooses to live in the inner city of Johannesburg when so many middle class people have moved away. He leans back in his chair, adjusts his glasses and hat, and waves both hands dramatically as he speaks: "I wanted my son to grow up as a new South African without the weight and burden of the past. I wanted him to be a citizen in his own country. I always thought of Mtutuzela Matshoba's book, “Call Me Not a Man”.