INLSA

Byron Machado, future owner of the famous Sad Sacks army store, looking at the well-known camouflaged bike that has been parked outside the shop since 1999

When Lynette Machado started working at Sad Sacks in 1983 she had no grey hair and had never seen a gun in her life. She also never thought she would own the shop one day.

The shop, on the corner of Che Guevara (Moore) and Umbilo roads, has been a landmark in Durban for 52 years, and while the character of the neighbourhood has changed over the years, Sad Sacks is still going strong.

Today, the tearooms and other small shops that made up the neighbourhood have given way to funeral parlours and small boutiques. With an old army camouflage motorbike parked in front, Sad Sacks is the loner, but nonetheless the stalwart.

Machado, 62, received the motorbike as a gift after buying a large amount of stock from a producer in Bloemfontein.

“When people phone, almost everyone asks if it is the shop where an old motorbike is parked in front of the gate,” she says.

The shop, which supplies camouflage clothing, canvas tents, army beds, sandbags and other army memorabilia, was named by its first owner after the American comic strip/book character created by Sergeant George Baker during World War II. Business thrived because of conscription for white youngsters during apartheid.

Machado started working there as a shop assistant to the second owner, but moved up the ranks until she bought the business in 1994.

It was a time of political change in SA but, oddly, Sad Sacks was largely unaffected. Paul Ntuli, a supervisor at the store for 28 years, says there were some tense moments during the apartheid years.

“There were moments when I did not feel comfortable when white soldiers saw me working at the cash till. They would give me weird looks, but they never hurt me.”

Machado adds: “I have seen it all. I have seen SA movie stars, soldiers, policemen, fashion designers and ordinary South Africans, so there is no customer that could shock me any more.”

Launching a Sad Sacks website (www.sadsacks.co.za) to get more exposure about 10 years ago also helped; eventually Machado was dealing with customers from Australia and India.

One thing Machado would like to forget is a robbery at the shop in the 1990s when three armed men held her and a supervisor up at gunpoint and locked them up in the toilet before making off with R5 000 worth of stock.

But the legacy that is Sad Sacks has kept Machado going. As neighbouring businesses come and go around her, Machado is proud that Sad Sacks has survived.

“The store is a landmark for Durban because we attract national and international customers. During the 1980s and ’90s the store had a lot of army surplus,” she says.

Although army gear remains the main merchandise, the customers today are not the young soldiers and farmers of the 1980s, but include fashion designers looking for material for their garments.

Machado has also had her moment of glory when Hollywood came knocking on her door in 2004.

“They told me they would be filming a movie called Blood Diamond, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. And when I saw the movie I got so excited when I saw the products in it.”

Thabo Mnguni, a comedian who is well known for his role as Bra Steve on the SABC 1 sitcom Family Bonds, is a regular customer. “He usually buys different hats and bags.”

Another regular visitor to the shop for some 30 years is Mikhail Peppas, a journalism lecturer at the Durban University Technology. Every year Peppas takes his first-year students to the store that has “survived for a long time in an area that has changed a lot”.

“The shop is really an institution and has a family atmosphere,” says Peppas, who used to love reading the Sad Sack comic strip.

Machado’s son and business heir, Byron, recalls coming to the shop in the ’80s after school to play with his elder brother. It was a dream for young boys wanting to play soldier.

“We used to wear the army boots, army hats and pretend to be soldiers,” he says. He remembers seeing a “Sergeant Major Adrian” who was in the old SA Defence Force for 40 years, come into the store regularly then. “He still comes to the store today. He is retired, but he loves buying bags because he travels a lot.”

Byron speaks of the days when army trucks would offload their surplus at the shop and remembers being intrigued by the soldiers.

Although trading conditions are tough and she pays rent of R10 000 a month, Machado vows that she would never sell the shop for any price.

“My son needs to continue and my grandson needs to continue with the shop,” she says.