The Dispatch has left the building! This is the last edition of the Saturday Dispatch to have been produced from the newspaper’s century-old home in Caxton Street.From tomorrow the newspaper, which began life as the East London Dispatch and Shipping and Mercantile Gazette in 1872, will be created in a custom-designed new building in Beacon Bay’s contemporary Triple Point development.
To celebrate the end of one era and beginning of another, four long-serving Dispatch staffers – two of them now retired – spoke about what the Caxton Street building meant to them.
Editor Bongani Siqoko arrived in the newsroom in December 1998 as a freshly graduated intern and was offered a full-time post as a reporter. “I remember the newsroom being filled with smoke – it was when people were still allowed to smoke.”
He also remembers his rookie days working with “the most interesting characters” such as boxing writer Mxolisi Ntshuca, agriculture reporter Wilberforce Mdoda, court reporter Wimpie Heath and crime reporter Matt Ramsden.
“This building means a lot to me,” said Siqoko, who has been appointed editor of the Sunday Times and will be replaced by deputy editor Brett Horner as acting editor. “Everything I know about journalism, I was taught here. But I stopped using the old lift months ago – I’m scared of it....Also, the building is a health and fire hazard, and I don’t trust the water…”
Former business and investigations editor Eddie Botha, who spent 14 years breaking stories and getting up the noses of people whose shenanigans he fearlessly exposed, said his ghost would take up residence in the building one day.
Botha, who retired in 2011 and now lives in Cape Town, said he was happy to have left the building before the move. “I would have hated to see everyone leave it. There is so much atmosphere and history in that building.”
Like many Dispatch hacks, he paid frequent visits to the Station Bar, a watering hole that once existed across the street, where he met sources and interviewed contacts.
Having started at the Dispatch under the late editor Gavin Stewart in 1997, the seasoned newshound became known for his pithy column called Business Breakfast with Eddie Botha. “I knew nothing about business but I knew there was a separate office that came with the position, where I could smoke and be served tea on a silver tray. I always smoked in my office, even when it was banned. And I would prop my feet up on my desk and take 10-minute power naps.”
Then, under Phylicia Oppelt’s editorship, his title was changed to investigations editor and he occupied “the best office in the building” – a spacious corner room with a view of the sea.
“A lot of people were glad when I retired – they wanted my office,” he quipped.
Liesl Elias, who arrived in 1994 as retail manager and retired 20 years later as regional sales manager, spent most of her years with the Dispatch in the adjoining building on the corner of Cambridge and Caxton streets before it was sold a few years ago.
“It was a lovely old building and my office had French doors leading on to the beautiful but rotten balcony. We were scared to walk on it – it was too dodgy.”
Although Elias loved the historical building, she feared accessing the garage via a rat-infested backyard after working late. “Those rats were as big as Yorkies. I would stand on the stairs and stamp my feet in the hope they would scuttle off.”
Although she felt an attachment to the newspaper’s old home, she was pleased its clients would now have a modern environment to visit.
One of the Dispatch’s longest-serving staffers, senior sub-editor Kariem Hassan who started at the Dispatch in 1976 as an apprentice, said he was sad to see “the end of a personal era”.
He remembers talk of a resident ghost called “Old Man Crewe” that some staff believed roamed the newsroom after nightshift. He also recalls staff frustration when the CBD was peppered with parking meters. “As soon as news filtered in that meter maids were on their way, we made a beeline out the building to fill expired meters.
“Its been a long haul and new memories wait in the new building.” — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
Final edition from Caxton St
From tomorrow the newspaper, which began life as the East London Dispatch and Shipping and Mercantile Gazette in 1872, will be created in a custom-designed new building in Beacon Bay’s contemporary Triple Point development.
To celebrate the end of one era and beginning of another, four long-serving Dispatch staffers – two of them now retired – spoke about what the Caxton Street building meant to them.
Editor Bongani Siqoko arrived in the newsroom in December 1998 as a freshly graduated intern and was offered a full-time post as a reporter. “I remember the newsroom being filled with smoke – it was when people were still allowed to smoke.”
He also remembers his rookie days working with “the most interesting characters” such as boxing writer Mxolisi Ntshuca, agriculture reporter Wilberforce Mdoda, court reporter Wimpie Heath and crime reporter Matt Ramsden.
“This building means a lot to me,” said Siqoko, who has been appointed editor of the Sunday Times and will be replaced by deputy editor Brett Horner as acting editor. “Everything I know about journalism, I was taught here. But I stopped using the old lift months ago – I’m scared of it....Also, the building is a health and fire hazard, and I don’t trust the water…”
Former business and investigations editor Eddie Botha, who spent 14 years breaking stories and getting up the noses of people whose shenanigans he fearlessly exposed, said his ghost would take up residence in the building one day.
Botha, who retired in 2011 and now lives in Cape Town, said he was happy to have left the building before the move. “I would have hated to see everyone leave it. There is so much atmosphere and history in that building.”
Like many Dispatch hacks, he paid frequent visits to the Station Bar, a watering hole that once existed across the street, where he met sources and interviewed contacts.
Having started at the Dispatch under the late editor Gavin Stewart in 1997, the seasoned newshound became known for his pithy column called Business Breakfast with Eddie Botha. “I knew nothing about business but I knew there was a separate office that came with the position, where I could smoke and be served tea on a silver tray. I always smoked in my office, even when it was banned. And I would prop my feet up on my desk and take 10-minute power naps.”
Then, under Phylicia Oppelt’s editorship, his title was changed to investigations editor and he occupied “the best office in the building” – a spacious corner room with a view of the sea.
“A lot of people were glad when I retired – they wanted my office,” he quipped.
Liesl Elias, who arrived in 1994 as retail manager and retired 20 years later as regional sales manager, spent most of her years with the Dispatch in the adjoining building on the corner of Cambridge and Caxton streets before it was sold a few years ago.
“It was a lovely old building and my office had French doors leading on to the beautiful but rotten balcony. We were scared to walk on it – it was too dodgy.”
Although Elias loved the historical building, she feared accessing the garage via a rat-infested backyard after working late. “Those rats were as big as Yorkies. I would stand on the stairs and stamp my feet in the hope they would scuttle off.”
Although she felt an attachment to the newspaper’s old home, she was pleased its clients would now have a modern environment to visit.
One of the Dispatch’s longest-serving staffers, senior sub-editor Kariem Hassan who started at the Dispatch in 1976 as an apprentice, said he was sad to see “the end of a personal era”.
He remembers talk of a resident ghost called “Old Man Crewe” that some staff believed roamed the newsroom after nightshift. He also recalls staff frustration when the CBD was peppered with parking meters. “As soon as news filtered in that meter maids were on their way, we made a beeline out the building to fill expired meters.
“Its been a long haul and new memories wait in the new building.” — barbarah@dispatch.co.za
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