A treasure trove of military memorabilia
IT’S a shop the likes of which you’ll not see too often.
Nestled in a little road just south of Rosebank is a house that was once a lawyer’s office, but now has a bunker atop one of the bay windows and, as you drive in, you just miss being impaled on the pointed nose of a Mirage fighter jet.
You can’t peer into the windows, because they’re covered in graphics lifted straight out of the old War Picture Library comic books.
Inside The Warstore, you’re assailed by a range of militaria that extends from World War II to the Napoleonic era, fast-forwarding past the Rhodesian Bush War to apartheid South Africa’s war in Angola and its own townships, interspersed by moments from Afghanistan and Iraq.
There are full uniforms, deactivated weapons, swords, engine parts, radios, medals and badges. It’s a treasure trove for everyone from the serious collector to the Walter Mitty wannabe, with real veterans – who might have lost their kit and need to replace medals in their bar – in between.
Owner Alan Coleman’s passion for all things military began at the age of 8 when his father gave him his grandfather’s medals that he had received “up north” as part of the SA Irish Regiment in World War II.
This began a journey of collecting and learning, including retracing his grandfather’s steps along the old North African battlefields from Sidi Rezegh to El Alamein, in between carving out a career for himself as a commercial artist painting the murals and ceilings that adorn Montecasino, Gold Reef City, Carnival City, Grand West and even the Orlando cooling towers in Soweto.
The little museum he started at the age of 10 in his bedroom grew and grew until 14 years ago he took the gap, opening a shop in Parkhurst, Joburg, before getting shop space at the Ditsong National Museum of Military History in Saxonwold a year later. But his lease wasn’t renewed after a change in management, prompting an acrimonious battle with the authorities and forcing Coleman to look elsewhere.
Everything that was in the old shop is there, plus a whole lot more. There’s the Vargas café named in honour of Alberto Vargas, who painted all the pin-up girls on the World War II Allied bombers, the inside of which has been made to look like an RAF dispersal room during the Battle of Britain, an “originals” room for collectors of authentic militaria dating from the Anglo-Zulu wars to present conflicts across the world.
There’s some truly esoteric items, like the original pilot’s radio from a World War II RAF Spitfire and a Wehrmacht doctor’s amputation kit complete with the instructions for severing the various limbs in German. There are bayonets, swords, deactivated muskets and rifles. Coleman even had an Adolf Hitler comb with his AH monogram on it before selling it. His shop is just like a museum, except “everything is for sale”.
His stock ebbs and flows with supply and demand. He travels extensively overseas to militaria fairs, goes to London costumiers to buy clothing from war-inspired films and plays, such as an outfit from the Gladiator on sale.
His clients are as varied, from local movie-makers to military re-enacters who dress up in replica uniforms correct to the smallest button and pouch. Some of his clients are interior designers looking for something specific to base their entire concept on, such as a genuine World War II general’s leather-bound map case.
Coleman eventually wants to have a museum or at least a dedicated display area for visiting exhibits like militaria expert Major General William Endley’s World War I medal collections, an art gallery for local and visiting war artists and even a library-cum-bookshop for those looking for rare and out-of-print texts and novels on the subject.
“By the time I’m finished,” he says, “this will be the onestop militaria shop on the continent for fans, veterans and serious collectors.”