Hearts and wallets open for Cansa and those ‘cups of tea’
● Spending a night in the back of a book store might not sound particularly glam.
But when the invitation comes from Billy Gundelfinger, the lawyer who has handled divorces for the likes of Tokyo Sexwale, Bill Venter and Pastor Ray McCauley, you know it’s going to be something worth ditching your PJs for.
So, last Sunday night I pitched up at Olives & Plates, the restaurant behind Exclusive Books in Joburg’s Hyde Park Corner shopping centre, for what would turn out to be a magical and stylish night that left me with the warm and fuzzies.
The occasion? A fundraising dinner hosted by Tharina and Richard Gordon along with Billy and his wife Michelle in aid of the Cancer Association of SA (Cansa) and the Hinde Foundation.
Passing a pink flower wall set up at the front, and just before slipping on the pink tie that we blokes are asked to wear, I am greeted by Tharina, herself a breast cancer survivor.
Nearby I spot Tharina’s husband Richard, son of Liberty Life founder Sir Donald, who had passed away a little over a week before.
In come Billy and Michelle, with their daughters Lisa Koppel and Justine in tow.
I learn that Lisa, who is married to crooner Danny K, is following in her dad’s footsteps.
Having practised as an advocate for four years, she recently decided to join her father’s Melrose Arch practice as an attorney. The firm specialises in criminal and matrimonial law.
“To work with my dad has been an absolute blessing and a treat,” says the mother of two boys.
On to catching up with a heavyweight couple, billionaire Robert Gumede and his wife Portia, whose aesthetics centre is also found in the mall.
The couple tell me that Dr P, as the practice is called in a nod to Portia’s medical credentials, is already embarking on an expansion just over a year after opening.
We sit down to meze starters and I start chatting to one of my tablemates Isla Lovell, who designed the most intriguing item on the auction that will take place later — a bra fashioned from 450 rooibos teabags to raise breast cancer awareness.
At the table on my left is event queen Jill Grogor, seated with Colleen and Rod Frew, the Summercon property developer, while elsewhere in the room I spot interior design guru Stephen Falcke.
The night’s official bits get under way, and a chipper Fez Mkhize, the doctor who moonlighted as a Top Billing presenter before the show was shuttered, compères
while we listen to speeches by Tharina’s daughter Cameron Hinde (who started the charitable foundation with her brother Jason) and Munnik Marais of Cansa.
Entertainment comes thanks to Danny and fellow singers Loyiso Bala and Lloyd Cele, who get us bopping to Motown classics, and magician Wian van den Berg shows off his sleight of hand.
The biggest laughs are when Wian, oblivious to the fact that he is performing a trick on one of the country’s most prominent politicians and businessmen, asks “Toyko as in the city?” when the former Gauteng premier tells him his name.
Speaking of Tokyo, it seems he became a dad again last year.
His fiancée, Nataxa da Silva, tells me the couple have a one-year-old boy, Gio, after reportedly welcoming another son in 2016.
Back to the fundraiser, and this is truly a charitable lot, with close to R750,000 brought in.
A sizable chunk was thanks to the capable skills of auctioneer Ariella Kuper, who got Portia, Michelle and
Tharina to place some of the winning bids.
Meanwhile, Justine picked up that rooibos bra for a cool R10,000 and Penny Cavaleros, in a hot-pink Michael Kors cocktail dress finished with glistening jewels by Elegance Jewellers, proved that she’s as generous as she is stylish.
The property heiress, whose family portfolio includes Norwood Mall and the Hilton and Maslow hotels in Sandton, forked out R100,000 for a Danie de Jager sculpture and a stay at Mala Mala.