Pinetown pioneer leaves behind legacy of courage and determination

THIS past weekend (June 22), a beloved father, husband and grandfather, and Kloof resident, Emil Lewis, was honoured at his memorial service which was put together by his sons and grandchildren. Lewis passed away on June 1 at the age of 83. Highway Mail visited his surviving wife, Eilleen Lewis, who shared about the ups and downs of his incredible story in building up his business, Fourway Fruiterers, which was a stalwart in the Highway community.

The late Lewis was a man of grit and ingenuity, who made a success out of an idea, an impulsive action and dogged determination and commitment to his dream.

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In 1976, Lewis, then a young husband and father, worked as a radio technician in Kloof. He decided to quit his comfortable job and, with his pension, bought a second-hand, dilapidated truck to sell fruit and grapes from, like a hawker, which shocked all those who knew him. Some thought he had gone mad.

He would travel down to Cape Town from Pinetown every week to pick up a supply of grapes directly from the farmers. A symbiotic relationship of trust developed between the grape farmers and Lewis. The majority of the farmers were contracted to various corporations and distillers, but they chose to help Lewis as an individual. Lewis and the farmers would pick and load his truck in the dark, and he’d be out before sunrise, leaving behind an ecstatic cash-crop farmer and the co-op none the wiser.

Lewis had the uncanny ability to avoid the authorities and the constraints instituted by the various control boards of the time. There was no money for fancy scales, so Lewis would sell the grapes (and naartjies in winter) in simple plant pots, out of his truck, mostly on the verge of Glenugie Road in Pinetown. Glenugie Road in those days was made up of just a few houses and some bush.

Bucking against the system

At the time, people weren’t allowed to sell things on the streets. So the local law enforcement was constantly harassing him, chasing him away regularly. However, the locals soon knew the ‘grape man’ and his truck and his R2-a-plant-bucket method of sales, and would wait patiently while Lewis drove around the block, then would give him the ‘all clear’ so he could return to his waiting customers.

One such customer, who witnessed this constantly, George Murdock, permitted Lewis to trade on his bush-covered land, which was at the corner of Glenugie and Manors roads. Murdock soon offered Lewis a way to purchase the land and pay it off at the rate he could afford – an agreement made with merely a handshake and trust – something not done today. Perhaps Murdock recognised in the young entrepreneur the burning ambition of his younger self. It took three painful years of incredibly hard work to pay for the land, but Lewis did it.

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However, the customers were multiplying fast, so the businessman needed a proper farmstall to grow his shop to accommodate them. It took a lot of persuasion, determination and faith in Lewis for the town board – something we also don’t have today –to allow him to build a small stall. Lewis and his faithful staff members, John Ngwane and Petros Kwela, built the initial shop themselves using cement pre-cast fencing. The farmstall’s success was a catalyst for the rapid growth of the Padfied Park residential area, and the initial farm stall had to be expanded three times.

Sticking to a dream causes exponential growth

When his son, Jonathan, finished school, he worked with his father to help in the business. Due to Lewis’ ability to keep growing his venture, he was able to eventually obtain a loan from the bank to build a full-on grocery store, which, today, is known as the Fourways KwikSPAR building.

The businessman learnt to be a baker and installed a bakery; he learnt to be a butcher and added a butchery. He sent Ngwane to butchery training, as well. With the help of Jonathan and his staff, they levelled their own car park as they couldn’t afford a grader to do it. His presence and position on Glenugie Road caused the street to evolve into a commercial area, and he became a pivotal retail supplier to the Pinetown community.

In 2012, Lewis sold the business, which by that time was a fully fledged supermarket. He still owned the property and worked with his tenant (and the new business owner) to develop the business into a SPAR. He then sold the property to a developer in 2018 and retired.

An ingenious man, with tenacity, stubbornness and an awful lot of good luck, transformed a vacant piece of land and a business run from a dilapidated old truck into the landmark you see today.

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