Mogodu Monday is a township tradition involving a feast of tripe dishes. At one such gathering at a neighbourhood joint in inner Soweto, I happened to meet an elderly stranger who confided a piece of curious history.
Sixty-two years ago, this clean-shaven man of easygoing demeanour was immortalised by a lensman working for Drum magazine.
The published photograph was not credited but was most likely taken by Bob Gosani.
In it, two African mites flank a Caucasian man who, by the style of his dress, unambiguously has some business related to matters celestial.
On the left is a little girl clinging to the elder's cassock, gazing at the camera uncertainly. On the right is a slightly older child, a boy in short pants held up with suspenders, clutching the priest's robe. The fatherly figure exudes empathy, his right arm outstretched to the tiny girl's beret as if in benediction.
Babysitter
This was Sophiatown in 1955. The priest was Father Trevor Huddleston of the Anglican religious order of the Community of the Resurrection. The children were five-year-old Edgar and three-year-old Fanny, son and daughter of Constance and Ernest Kgosi of Western Native Township.
Over a plate of tripe six decades later, Edgar Kgosi told me that his mother, a nurse at a clinic next to the chaplain's church of Christ the King, entrusted the children to Huddleston's care each weekday afternoon, until she could collect them after work.Constance, says her son, lived for the Anglican Church and the ANC and carried her midwifery instruments everywhere in a bag on her head in case she was needed.
Edgar and Fanny were not the first in the family to appear in print; Edgar remembers Constance being among those pictured in a newspaper during the Rivonia Trial. She was also involved in the women's anti-pass movement.
The children's presence at the priest's side as he walked his rounds led residents of the place fondly referred to as Kofifi to call them "the children of Father Huddleston".
Huddleston arrived in Sophiatown in 1943 and lived through the tragedy that apartheid wrought on the community. He became known as Makhalipile (Dauntless One) for many reasons, including establishing the African Children's Feeding Scheme and the Orlando swimming baths. He threw his lot in with the political forces ranged against the oppressive regime and its escalating injustices.
After the forced removals of non-whites from Sophiatown, Huddleston, defeated in his goal of interracial co-existence, departed sadly from the country to which he had given so much. He died in the UK on April 20 1998.Into exile
In 1961, the Kgosi family were relocated to Rockville, Soweto, where Edgar became an altar boy at their new church of St Francis of Assisi. He remembers Makhalipile as "someone close to God", although their early years in Kofifi are no more than a distant blur to the siblings.
Edgar ("Slick" to his friends) was a politically active student in the turbulent 1970s. He obtained a BA in economics and worked as a researcher before joining the human resources department of a mining company, where he ran into job reservation.
His sister Fanny was sent to board at Moroka High School in Thaba Nchu. Her studies were interrupted by events of the time. She left for exile in 1979, living in Botswana, Zambia and Tanzania, where she attended the famous Mazimbu school at Morogoro.
Jonas Gwangwa, a voice from the Kgosis' Sophiatown past, came to sing at the school, and was so impressed by Fanny's voice that he helped her kick off a career in showbiz. As a singer and dancer she travelled around the world, including to countries behind the Iron Curtain, entertaining audiences while awakening them to what was happening in South Africa.
In 1990 Fanny - also known as Kuni - returned to South Africa and was reunited with the son she'd left behind when she fled into exile; he has sadly now died. She lives in Orlando West.
Slick lives not far away, in Bassonia. He has two kids and four grandchildren and spends most of his days playing golf, a sport he picked up as a boy when working as a caddie.
The siblings teamed up with me to visit their childhood stomping ground. It was a moving and emotional return, particularly for Fanny, who had not revisited the location of her youth.
We went to the church of Christ the King in Sophiatown, which reclaimed its original name in 2006 and where Huddleston's remains are interred. There, on one of the walls, is a mural. Immortalised in giant silhouette are Edgar, Fanny, and their protector from all those years ago, Makhalipile...