Latest news with #Melville
Mail & Guardian
4 days ago
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
Universities, revive Joburg's hippest 'hood
(Graphic: John McCann/M&G) Melville, once declared one of the world's hippest neighbourhoods, is in serious decline. The suburb is an important asset to our academic life and must be restored. I often host students and faculty from universities in Europe and the US. For a long time, Melville was the automatic place for academic visitors, professors and students to visit and stay while passing through Johannesburg. Located next to the University of the Witwatersrand, one of our two great universities, as well as the up-and-coming University of Johannesburg (UJ), Melville has long provided a convivial environment for academics and post-graduate visitors. In 2020, just five years ago, Time Out magazine ranked Melville as one of the 40 coolest neighbourhoods in the world. Academic travel matters, and academics want to enjoy their experience of travel. For decades Melville, buzzing with coffee shops, restaurants, live music venues, galleries and a very good second-hand bookshop provided exactly what academics and post-graduate students needed to enjoy their time in Johannesburg. The turn to Zoom during Covid has reduced academic travel quite a bit, but spending two days on Zoom rather than travelling for a conference is a painful and vastly less rewarding experience. Melville was hit hard by the Covid lockdown though, and has been hit just as hard by the general collapse in the functioning of the Johannesburg municipality. Many of the restaurants on the once world-famous 7th Street shut down during the lockdown and many of the buildings on the strip remain empty. If there had been some vision to support the strip, understanding it as a wider asset to the city, and the country, this could have been avoided. Driving into Melville recently with a group of students and academics was a depressing experience. Coming up Main Road, which divides Melville and Westdene, is bleak. There are three large holes, which are so big they cannot be described as potholes, on Main Road that have been left unattended for months — aside from placing a plastic barrier in front of them. Some of the shopkeepers dump their refuse on the pavement next to the pedestrian litter bins rather than keeping it for the weekly refuse collection. The homeless people on Main Road, many struggling with addiction, live in squalor and the lack of public toilets has inevitable consequences. Uber and delivery drivers face the same lack of access to toilets with the same unfortunate results. Turning into Melville itself is no less disheartening. Streets no longer have working lights, there are a couple of abandoned and looted or vandalised houses, and some of the electricity poles have a mess of dangling wires, some live. Around the suburb piles of rubble have been left on the pavements after work done by Egoli Gas and various arms of the municipality. It seems that it is no longer expected that rubble will be removed after maintenance work alongside the streets. The 7th Street strip, with its many empty buildings, has large ditches filled with sand at each end. They have also been there for months. On the corner of 3rd Avenue and 7th Street, part of the road has been left in a dug-up state and with a pile of rubble sitting on the road. It too has been like this for months. Private property owners are beginning to do the same. On the corner of 2nd Avenue and 7th Street a homeowner has left two large piles of building rubble on the pavement for months. A slow water leak has been trickling down 7th Street for months. There are no drain covers on the strip. This is unsightly and a hazard for pedestrians. The road markings have long faded away. Anyone on the strip who looks like they may have some money is immediately accosted by desperate people trying to get a few rand. Water outages are common in the area, sometimes going on for as long as two weeks. There are also occasional electricity outages that can go on for days. This makes things very difficult for the owners of the B&Bs that remain in the neighbourhood, as well as the surviving restaurants and other businesses. Driving out of Melville on 9th Street towards Parkview, a suburb that remains in good nick, there are more piles of rubble on the pavements and more deep holes in the road. As on Main Road, both the rubble and the holes have been left for months. It is not immediately clear why nearby suburbs such as Parkview, Greenside and Parkhurst are in a good condition while Melville is in decay. An academic neighbourhood requires a good bookshop and, thankfully, the good second-hand bookshop on the Melville strip endures, but it's no longer open in the evenings. There are some signs of new life after the devastation of the lockdown though. De Baba, a new bakery and coffee shop at the bottom of the strip is always buzzing. On the other side of the road there's a new and very hip coffee shop, Sourcery. It would fit right into Brooklyn, New York, and is perfect for an arty and academic neighbourhood like Melville. A vinyl-obsessed friend tells me that the music selection is extraordinary. Unfortunately, Sourcery seems empty most of the time. The same is true of Arturo, an excellent and equally hip African Latin-American fusion restaurant further on up the strip. Some of the problems faced by Melville are a result of South Africa's wider social crisis. For as long as we face catastrophic levels of unemployment people will be forced to live on the streets. The heroin epidemic is also a national problem. Although the municipality can take some steps to ameliorate some of the consequences of these problems it cannot fix them. But much of the sad state of Melville is a result of the failures of the municipality. Some of these failures could be resolved in a single day. Light bulbs could be installed on the street lights, the large holes on Main Street, 7th Street and 9th Street could be fixed, the rubble left along the pavements could be removed, the water leak on 7th Street could be attended to and the road markings redone. The private businesses dumping their waste alongside the pedestrian bins on Main Road could be fined, as could the private homeowner who has left piles of building rubble on the corner of 2nd Avenue. Other issues that fall within the remit of the municipality, such as the failure to provide public toilets on Main Road, cannot be resolved in a day, but with some vision and energy they could be resolved in a few months. Getting the water and electricity systems functional is a much bigger project but is also something that can be achieved with the right commitment. The abandoned properties, with at least one house stripped to nothing but its walls, should be expropriated and sold, with the money invested into regeneration projects. There should also be active support, including subsidies, for art galleries and live music venues. All the world's great cities actively support cultural life and the same should be done in Johannesburg. Again, this is something that would, even with the right vision and commitment, take at least a few months to kick into gear. When Melville was the vibrant and world-regarded home to Johannesburg's arty and academic scene it was a major asset to the city. It was an asset to the city's residents, and to visitors to the city, including its wider tourism economy. Melville was also an important asset to the city's two universities, making visits by academics and post-graduate students from elsewhere in the country and abroad an enriching and fun experience. There is scant hope that the municipality will, on its own, take the initiative to act to restore Melville to what it once was and can easily be again. Universities are powerful institutions in society; Wits University and UJ should lobby the municipality to act to restore Melville as one of the world's great academic neighbourhoods. A well maintained and vibrant Melville would be a boon for the city. With the right commitment it would only take a single day to begin to turn things around. Dr Imraan Buccus is a research fellow at the University of the Free State and the Auwal Socioeconomic Research Institute, ASRI.
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Obituary: a life with three full courses
NANCY CARR In an era when a woman's place in the world was seen to be at the heart of a household, Nancy Joy Carr smashed those perceptions. She did it by forging a career, perhaps ironically, as an academic lecturer and researcher at the University of Otago School of Home Science. To her, it made sense, because it was there that she was able to inspire the hearts and minds of many generations of young women, and show them they could be more. Nancy was many things to many different people — a family woman, a friend, an academic, a leader, an adviser, a diplomat and an advocate. She wore a lot of hats, and she wore them well — most notably as a lecturer in community and family studies and food sciences, a researcher in experimental foods and recipes and a producer of popular cook books. Born in Invercargill on February 7, 1936, to Jack and Gladys Deal, Nancy was the youngest of five children. Later, the family moved to the Hutt Valley, near Wellington, and she went to Hutt Valley High School. When she finished school, she studied at the University of Otago School of Home Science. While there, she lived at Studholme College and relished working in the kitchen, because it gave her the chance to learn about catering. She excelled in the clothing and food science papers — particularly clothing. She often made beautiful dresses to wear for dance nights. It was at one of those dance nights at Otago, that she met chemistry student and future husband Melville Carr, and the couple became very close. When Nancy graduated with her bachelor of home science degree in 1958, she was awarded the Jessie Kinder Prize for the best graduate. There were mixed emotions about the achievement, because it was then that she and Melville had to begin a long-distance relationship. He needed to continue his postgraduate studies at Otago, while she needed to go to Auckland Teachers' College for a year, to study for a certificate in secondary education. In 1959, Nancy's working life started as a science teacher at Hutt Valley High School, and at the start of 1960, she and Melville were reunited and married in the Hutt Valley. They then spent 1960 both lecturing at Otago. Just when the newly married couple seemed to be settling down to their new life together, Melville won a Fulbright Scholarship in 1962, so they upped sticks and moved to London, where Nancy landed a job at UniLever's Food and Cookery Centre as head of the creative department, compiling and testing recipes. She became very skilled at food photography, preparing editorials and display advertisements for magazines and television. Learning how to make a pavlova without cracks was one of many important skills she developed there. Eighteen months later, Melville had completed his scholarship, and the duo moved again, this time to the United States, where Nancy pursued her dream of extending her education. She studied for a bachelor of economics in foods and nutrition at Penn State University, while working as a graduate assistant in food and nutrition research. Having completed the majority of a third degree, the couple moved back to Dunedin in 1965, where both took up lectureships — Nancy in food science at the University of Otago School of Home Science, and Melville in the chemistry department. She lectured on various courses, including home management, sociology of the family, consumer studies, community and family studies and experimental foods. Their first child, Stephen, was born in 1968, and while that may have ended the academic careers of many women of that era, six-month-old Stephen was often parked in a pram at the front of a lecture theatre while she gave lectures. Nancy was a strong, determined woman who knew how to use diplomacy to make a difference. One of her greatest passions was equality for women. She always dressed well, and while she loved beautiful dresses and skirts (many of which she made herself), she often wore trousers too, even when it was not common for women. Nancy also conducted a lot of research projects at the university, many of which were invariably connected to her personal interests. In response to rising food prices in 1980, she had her management in family living students conduct a pilot study of Dunedin households, to do with budgeting, shopping, home production and preservation of food, family meals and making ends meet. She found that buying at supermarkets was taking over from local grocers and greengrocers; bottling and freezing produce was still very common; vegetable growing was at 66%; and most knew how to make ends meet. In 1981, she published the results of another survey investigating the involvement of New Zealand men in homemaking tasks, which concluded that men did tasks traditionally seen as male responsibilities, like taking out the rubbish, mowing lawns and cleaning the car. They contributed to dishwashing and childcare, but their participation in washing and ironing clothes, vacuuming and cooking meals was "quite low". Nancy suggested New Zealand advertising agencies should pay more attention to males in their consumer advertising, rather than reinforcing stereotypes. Alongside her lecturing and research, Nancy developed and tested recipes and wrote four cookbooks in the 1970s and 1980s, titled Lively Lunches , for the Dunedin Lions Club and New Zealand Plunket Society; Eating for Health , for the Heart Foundation; Laurenson's Cookbook ; and Winning Ways with Chocolate , for Cadbury's. Her books often gave readers a few tricks of the trade, such as brushing food with oil or sugar syrup so it would glisten and using cream cheese instead of whipped cream for piping because it would not collapse so easily. Her son Stephen said coming home from school during that chapter in her life was "like stepping into heaven". "The kitchen would be full of chocolate desserts, biscuits, cakes — and the dining room would be set up for a photo shoot. "When I came through the door, Mum would catch the look on my face and quickly steer me toward the things that had already been photographed, so I could sample them. "Growing up, we also had all sorts of more experimental food at home, like sheep's brain fritters." At the same time, she was very invested in her children's education. She worked on school fairs, served as president of the Māori Hill Playcentre committee, chaired the Columba College Parents' Association and was a member of the Columba College Board of Governors and house committees. Nancy loved hosting family and friends for parties at home, and there was always a feast of different dishes for them to try. When presenting a dish, she was often heard to say, "this is an experiment", but everyone loved her dishes and no-one ever got sick. Eating out was another way she explored food. She became a NZ Beef and Lamb judge, frequently travelling "undercover" with Melville to restaurants, to sample and evaluate beef and lamb dishes. Later in her career, Nancy shifted into community and family studies lecturing, and consumer rights also became a big part of her life. She was a member of many food and consumer organisations, including the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology; the Consumers' Institute Dunedin District committee; the Home Science Alumnae national executive (1977-82) and vice-president and associate editor (1979-82); the New Zealand Standards Association Meat Grades project chairwoman (1986-87); a Dunedin Budget Advisory committee member (1985-92); and was the Ministry of Consumer Affairs representative on the Otago District Legal Services committee (1992). She also represented the University of Otago's School of Home Science at International Federation of Home Economics quadrennial conferences in 1982, 1984, 1988 and 1992, and was on its business committee for a time in the 1990s. One of her greatest honours came in 1993, when she was awarded the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal, recognising her contribution to women's rights in New Zealand — something she was very proud of. After 36 years, Nancy retired from the University of Otago in 1996, bringing to an end a remarkable career. Having more spare time on her hands, she was able to focus on another passion in her life — Knox Church. She joined the church in 1955 and was actively involved in the life of the congregation for more than 63 years. Her family was immersed in church activities, and she participated in the Young Wives' Group activities in the 1980s. However, it was following her retirement from the university that she had the time to take on more significant church responsibilities. In 2010, Knox Church celebrated its 150th anniversary, and a book published at that time recorded several acknowledgements of Nancy's important contribution to Knox's work. This included serving as envelope secretary (1998-2011), serving on the finance committee and becoming a member of the Deacon's Court and the project committee. Nancy was also an avid traveller and often spent long periods on paths less travelled by tourists — like Alaska, Antarctica, Iceland and across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway. She was a natural public speaker and often gave talks for groups like the Friends of the Dunedin Public Library, sharing her travel tales. Later on, when travel became harder, she kept active through groups like the Cargill Combined Probus Club, and even served a term as president. Above all, Nancy was an incredibly dedicated woman. She was always cheerful and compassionate, and all of her work demonstrated her commitment to the values of her home science degrees, which aimed to improve living standards for all. Nancy died on April 9, 2025, peacefully at Summerset at Bishops Court, in Dunedin, aged 89. She is survived by Melville, son and daughter-in-law Stephen and Sara, daughter and son-in-law Joanne and Andrew Robertson and her five grandchildren. — John Lewis
CTV News
5 days ago
- General
- CTV News
‘Learning quick and having fun': Melville school holds safety day
Melville Comprehensive School held an 'Amazing Safety Quest' on Thursday, a theme day to teach students about safety at the workplace and at home. 'The students, Grade 5 to 12 are navigating safety stations, learning about a variety of industries, everything from workplace safety to community safety, recreational safety, getting a sense of different career paths they might be interested in,' said Amanda Wood, community relations coordinator at the Saskatchewan Safety Council. The inspiration behind the event was the passing of Cade Sprackman, an 18-year-old from Hudson Bay who was killed in a preventable workplace incident three weeks into his first job on Jan. 27, 2015. The safety day was organized to honour his memory and to ensure that accidents like his are prevented. The event was held at the school's gym. About 20 organizations were lined up along the walls. Students had seven minutes to try out a variety of activities, from CPR dummies to a fire hose. There was a lot of laughter and goofing around despite the importance of the event. Safety Day Students at Melville Comprehensive School took part in a safety day on Thursday. (Fruzsina De Cloedt / CTV News) 'All of these students will be going into careers, and in any type of field, there's always safety you need to learn about,' one of the students pointed out. 'Even in your personal life, you never know when you're going to come across something that you might need to know about these things,' she added. The Melville Fire Brigade held a mini race for the students: spraying water to knock over pylons. Lieutenant Parker Ellert told CTV News that he too, thinks that events like the one at the school are important. 'It gives kids experiences that they wouldn't usually get in their ordinary life or everyday life,' he said before he returned to his station to show a group of students how to hold the hose. A few minutes later, there was cheering as someone managed to knock over a pylon quickly. 'Actually, they're really good. They're learning quick, and they're having lots of fun,' he added. While the safety quest was only available to students at the school, the organizers thought that other members of the public would also enjoy learning about prevention. For those who are interested, an evening community event will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Melville Comprehensive School.
CTV News
5 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Sask. RCMP investigating after hidden spikes found in farmer's field
Sharpened harrow spikes were discovered in a field in the RM of Grayson near Melville, Sask. RCMP are asking for the public's help as it investigates the incident. (Courtesy: Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers) RCMP in Melville, Sask. are investigating after a series of sharpened spikes were found in a local field. On May 28, officers were called to a land location south of Melville – in the Rural Municipality of Grayson. Police say a farmer in the area had discovered pieces of harrows buried in their field. Harrows are made up of individual steel spikes which smooth out the surface of the soil and break up clumps of straw and dirt. They are commonly used in combination with other equipment during seeding. However, these harrows appeared to have been intentionally sharpened at the tip and buried at the height of stubble in an effort to conceal them, police say. RCMP officers found several other harrows buried in the area – all sporting sharpened tips – which police say were designed to penetrate the tires of farm equipment due to their placement. Several of the spikes had already been embedded in equipment tires by the time officers were called. Melville RCMP are asking the public to report any suspicious people or vehicles in the area – and encourage anyone with information to submit an anonymous tip to Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Campaign warns public to stop council staff abuse
A fresh campaign aimed at stopping council staff being abused by the public has been announced, after incidents almost doubled in a month. Recent reports included one worker being pushed down an embankment and another nearly being crushed when a lorry drove through a closed road. Cumberland Council's assistant director of highways and transport, Karl Melville, said staff "have the right to go to work, do their job and come home without being abused". Last year, a similar campaign featured posters of council workers' children placed near roadworks, to remind drivers that those working there have families. Incidents of abuse also saw council staff fitted with bodycams. At a recent council meeting, Mr Melville told members a lorry went through a road closure at a bridge in Sebergham, nearly crushing one of the workers on the bridge, while in a separate incident a vehicle travelled through a road closure and collided with the back of a wagon. According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, monthly figures showed incidents of council workers being abused shot up from 34 in March to 64 in April. Mr Melville said the council has "also had situations where half-eaten food has been thrown at our staff while they're doing their work". "That's totally unacceptable," he said. Leader of the council Mark Fryer said staff safety was a priority, adding the Labour-led council would look at taking private prosecutions "if the police think that it isn't worthy". "We've got to look after our people," Fryer said. The new campaign will be launched over the summer. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Road workers' children feature in safety campaign Cumberland Council
