Selby, where the streets are paved with gold

If you have spent any time in Johannesburg, you will know about mine dumps. You may even have a favourite mine dump!

These enormous piles of gold mine tailings were once to be found all along the gold reef that ran south of the city. Over time, the gold price rose enough for the mine tailings to have value again. The mine dumps were then themselves mined, and most of them have ceased to exist.

But not my favourite mine dump!

This is the mine dump that once played host to the city’s most illustrious drive-in cinema: the Top Star drive-in, in Selby.

Sadly drive-in movies fell out of favour, and most of them seem to have closed a decade or more ago. The era of social distancing may see the return of the drive-in though, perhaps expanded to provide live music events, concerts and even strip shows, if news coming out of Port Elizabeth is to be believed.

But enough about Port Elizabeth! In Johannesburg, one of our most-loved and legendary drive-in movie theatres was the Top Star, which offered an enormous screen, a takeaway restaurant and a classic view of the Joburg skyline.

This was the scene of an early date I went on with the lady I was to marry. She is a Xhosa lady, and I don’t know if I was trying to be down with the blacks, but we went and saw Get Rich Or Die Trying starring 50 Cent.

As it happened, we are both from Port Elizabeth, that innovative coastal town.

Innovative or not, career opportunities are scarce in PE, and we would both find our way up to “The Reef” to seek our fortune. It proved a wise call for both of us. To this day, we are both employed here, supporting the small child we would later have, even if the relationship itself would not last.

In the early days of that relationship, one of our first dates was at the Top Star drive-in, perched atop that Joburg goldmine dump.

Despite attempts by miners to reclaim the dump, and extract the last, precious traces of gold from the site, this has been prevented by the Provincial Heritage Resources Authority of Gauteng.

And so, the Top Star Mine Dump abides.

Once, only a few years ago, I had business in the South of Joburg. I was a digital radio show host! As I was driving back from doing my show, I decided to take a new route, through Selby, just for interest’s sake.

The weather was rainy and overcast, and the gutters were running with water.

My route happened to take me past the back of the Top Star Drive-In mine dump. As I drove by, I was fascinated to notice bright-yellow streams of run-off pouring off the side of the dump, this 50-metre monument to Joburg’s gold-mining past.

Off the side of this hill, perched between some used-car dealerships and a warehouse that was being used as a nightclub, these golden streams meandered their way down some pedestrian paths, and into the gutters of Booysens Road.

On that grey day, the streets of Johannesburg were literally paved with gold!

I stopped to take a photo, but there was no way to really do it justice.

Still, this was gold, real gold dust from the Top Star. This was the very gold that drew my ex-wife and me to the City of Gold to seek our fortune. Here it was, paving with gold the streets of the city where the two of us found each other.

We found our fortune, in a way, and we’re still here. That gold brought many of us here, as well as our ancestors.

You’ll be interested to know that you can still say it, and it’ll be true. “The streets of Johannesburg are paved with gold!”

Well, Booysens Road at least. When it rains!

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