grew up with the legend of how my parents
found our house. The story went that they were
buying a cabinet at a second-hand shop when
they heard that the former owners of the cab-
inet were selling their house in Melville. They
saw the house and “it had good vibes”, so they
immediately bought it for the princely sum of R10 000. It was 1971.
My parents lived in that house until they died, in 2008 and 2009,
respect ively. The cabinet became my children’s toy cupboard,
before it finally, literally, collapsed.
The house sat on a corner – one of the doyennes of Melville.
Built in 1910, it was “one of the original houses”. But, if you live in
an older house, you will know that
a number of houses are “one of the
original houses”. My current home
in Craighall Park is also one of these
alleged original houses.
The Melville house squatted in
the middle of a larger-than- usual
plot of land (“a quarter of an acre”
my father would say in an im por tant
voice). Driving past the property
today, you can still see the willow
that was at the heart of the garden –
more lunches than you can imagine
were eaten under that tree.
My parents added little to the
house, except building a studio for
my father, the artist Fred Schimmel.
The studio was a character of its own. Photographs from my baby-
hood show an empty space and clean floors – but by the time
my memories start, it was filled with paper, and paintings, and
machines, and tools, and boxes of things “that might come in use-
ful one day”. It was crammed to the rafters – a situation that did
not help things when, in June 1976, a passing disgruntled soul set
my parents’ kombi on fire, which in turn set the garage on fire and
that set the studio on fire. When I cleared out the house in 2010,
there were still fire-damaged paintings. I can’t even talk about the
trauma of clearing that jam-packed studio!
The studio was the place of much industry; artists of the day
- Battiss, Sibiya, Skotnes – passed through its doors. It smelled of
paint and turps and expensive paper, a smell so evocative that I
occasion al ly find myself transported back as if no time has passed.
The house itself was my mother’s domain – although, of course,
my father’s art, and that of his friends, adorned the walls. When
I was about 8, we had a movie birthday party for me. A projector
and screen were set up in the lounge, and in order to keep the light
Her childhood home in Melville was full of art and books and other stuff, says
Gail Schimmel.
A HOUSE WITH GOOD VIBES
I
PORTRAITNICOLISE HARDINGout, my father put rejected silkscreen prints over all the
windows. The next week I overheard a friend saying,
“Gail’s house has so much art in it that they even put
paintings on the windows.” Not true, but almost.
The house was also full of stuff. As a child, I was
mortified because none of it was new stuff. My parents
were very much of the school of thought that once
you’d bought a couch (or a chair or a table) that was
it; that was your furniture for life. Very occasionally,
if my father had sold a painting, they reupholstered
something. Even more occasionally, my mother would
buy a peculiar piece of furniture at a second-hand shop
(always) and my father would wonder at her
wild spending ways. I was 26 before I knew it was
accept able to buy an appliance new from a shop
rather than from “the guy” down the road. Aged
7, I longed for a matching dining-room set, with
chairs covered in red velvet. What I had was
a space next to the kitchen, with a wooden table
and mismatched wooden chairs – which would,
in later years, systematically collapse under my
husband’s weight. Today, I would give much
for a meal cooked by my mother and served at
that table now!
The book room, a name we gave to an
enclosed section of the wrap-around stoep
with shelves lining the walls, was a narrow,
musty space filled with books, often two rows
deep. The bulk was my father’s collection of
fantasy and science fiction. To this day I dream of that
room – which was also full of peculiar treasures tucked
between books and in a row of cupboards.
My mother occasionally announced that it was her
novel-writing room, putting the idea in my head that
novel writing was a very normal activity. She never
wrote a novel. I don’t know if I could have in that
room, either.Gail Schimmel lives in Craighall Park,
“because I’m a quintessential Joburg girl
and the suburb is very central”. She is
the CEO of the newly formed Advertising
Regulatory Board, her “day job”; Gail’s
fourth novel, The Accident, was recently
published by Pan Macmillan. You can follow
her on Instagram (@therealgailschimmel),
Twitter (@GailSchimmel) and Facebook
(Gail Schimmel Writer).TO THIS DAY I DREAM
OF THAT ROOM –
WHICH WAS ALSO
FULL OF PECULIAR
TREASURES TUCKED
BETWEEN BOOKS
AND IN A ROW OF
CUPBOARDS.visi.co.za JUNE/JULY 2019 40
�ISI VOICES