Gaye Barbour was born and raised in Zimbabwe. With a love for nature, the arts, and flowers, she now finds herself on Andringa Street, Stellenbosch, selling flowers. She spoke to SMF News’ Buhle Bam.
It’s a noticeably warm autumn day after a long stretch of clammy weather in Stellenbosch. “The sun is out,” says Gaye Barbour, as she welcomes SMF News into her flower shop in a maroon-painted Wendy house on Andringa Street. She is standing next to her multifunctional table that speaks to a sense of organised chaos. Between the paper clippings, fragments of string, and scattered flower stems lies her story.
She is now seated. The scent of eucalyptus fills the shop as Gaye rubs a few leaves between her hands.
A day in the shop looks like long stretches of idleness and bursts of activity as Gaye fashions floral arrangements. She has been running Die Blomstalletjie with a quiet sense of confidence and ease for 10 years now.
Gaye Barbour, the owner of Die Blomstalletjie, standing in front of the flower shop that she has been running for the past 10 years. PHOTO: Buhle Bam
It all started with a prayer, she says.
“Secretly, at home, I’d literally been on my knees, with my hands in the air saying, ‘Oh God, I have to work somehow. These are my hands’,” she says, as she recounts the month before the shop would become hers.
Certain that it was her faith that had brought her to this point, she says: “It was serendipity, out of the blue”.
Joan Pare, the previous owner of Die Blomstalletjie and Gaye’s mentor in floristry during her university days, saw it fit that Gaye would become the next owner of the flower shop.
Gaye Barbour adding light purple chrysanthemums to a bunch of gypsophila for a customer’s bouquet. PHOTO: Buhle Bam
This followed various interactions where Gaye would avail herself to assist Joan, a world-class florist who used to make floral arrangements for the likes of the British monarch, says Gaye.
“I have accomplished quite a lot with my hands, one of my most valuable assets,” says Gaye.
“At the beginning, I actually [thought my hands] were butterflies,” she says, revealing her sense of wonder. “And they could fly around as they wanted. And that made beautiful bouquets.”
Her hands, eyes and grasp of colour theory are the pillars of her floral artistry.
The winding road
Gaye was raised in the countryside of Zimbabwe. Her childhood was good, but growing up as an only child she was quite sheltered.
She lived a full life. Her days consisted of study, play, and taking care of her cousins, nieces, and nephews.
Gaye’s passion for the dramatic arts and theatre later brought her to Cape Town in the mid-1970s.
“I went to [the University of Cape Town], where I studied humanities and drama,” she says.
It was a period marked by political conscientisation and personal growth.
Gaye Barbour’s working station, with her flower-cutting pliers, bits of eucalyptus, and string. PHOTO: Buhle Bam
“I was very ignorant,” she says. “ I didn’t know there was this political turmoil.”
Suddenly, the serenity of the countryside was juxtaposed by a politically charged campus, where she quickly became aware of the realities of Apartheid.
“There were a lot of disruptions,” she says. “You can’t go to classes. This and that, and the next thing.”
Gaye takes a moment, contemplatively looking down at her hands as she smells the remnants of eucalyptus oil.
“At the same time, at drama school crossroads were happening,” she says.
She had come to realise the hostilities of the dramatic arts. The competition, the trumping over one another for the lead role, and a chance to be in the spotlight.
She says that she had to make a choice. “I was either going to get a target, hit it, and win, or I was going to remain forgiving, kind, and honest.”
I chose the latter. It was a harder road.
She traded the spotlight for supporting roles and made use of theatre as an educational tool.
Theatre and entertainment have been conflated, she claims. “Theatre should educate.”
Theatre should educate irrespective of a person’s background, she says. “You should see something and learn something in the two hours, three hours, about what the playwright is saying.”
For a year of her life, after she had graduated in 1978, she toured South Africa as part of a theatre programme that educated children on child abuse.
The programme was designed to “educate the youth of the time in what to look for and how to handle that situation, should you be in it”.
This was one of the many theatre productions Gaye featured in. She found a way to make an impact, with theatre as her medium, by pursuing kindness above all else.
The freedom to be
The kind of freedom Gaye now lives in was embodied by her mother as she was growing up.
“She was able to live in freedom,” she says. “More so than I have seen a lot of other people do.”
Her British stepmother, on the other hand, had a different life.
At her father’s house, she learned that the way her mother had been living was far from the norm. Gaye had later noticed that her stepmother was very dependent on him.
Gaye Barbour introduces herself to the Stellenbosch community as she makes a “light informal bouquet”, she says. VIDEO: Buhle Bam
“She didn’t even drive a car,” says Gaye.
She says that learning to navigate the differences between both households was one of her first acting roles.
“It was like chalk and cheese.”
“[With] my mom, I could wear shorts, I could climb trees, like a tomboy,” she says.
Her father’s house, she says, “was very regimented, completely the opposite”.
Gaye’s mother experienced a side of Gaye that her father had not given her the space to express in his presence.
“She didn’t clip my wings,” she says. “She trusted me enough to go by like a butterfly, instead of carving a strong path for me.”
At her mother’s place, she was free to be who she wanted to be.
Dreaming big
Die Blomstalletjie is just the beginning, says Gaye.
“The hope and the plans have always been that it can become a model,” she says.
When she had first started operating the flower shop, she experienced a steep learning curve.
“I encountered challenges soon after […] because there were hidden costs,” she says. “It takes capital to buy flowers and to get suppliers.”
She also encountered difficulties with building the necessary networks to run the shop effectively.
As she overcame the challenges associated with taking over the shop, she realised that she had gained a wealth of knowledge.
I want to use this as a model. Train one, two, three people, set them up, and reproduce it.
She dreams of helping people open flower shops in Franschhoek, Cape Town, and Johannesburg.
“It’s just a willingness to work with your hands,” says Gaye Barbour, the owner of Die Blomstalletjie, preparing gypsophila for a customer’s bouquet. PHOTO: Buhle Bam
Gaye would also like to mentor others just as she had been mentored by Joan.
She has already started sharing her love for flowers and the business of it with Ashlyn Nelson, an American exchange student, who recently started helping out at Die Blomstalletjie.
“It’s so nice to see the happiness we get to bring people through flowers,” says Ashlyn.
Marothi-Kgothatso Motshekga, a loyal customer, shares Gaye and Ashlyn’s joy for flowers.
“I have bought a few times and enjoy the option of choosing the size of my bouquet,” says Marothi-Kgothatso. “A part of me prefers buying from her because it feels more wholesome to support a small business.”
Behind the bundles stands Gaye, with her hand stretched out as she continues to share her gift of floristry.