ANNE THOMAS WRITES AS FOLLOWS:
Ena Giddy, a feisty and courageous woman died on the 14th August 2016 having reached her centuary. Whatever I write cannot convey her vibrant personality. I would have loved to have known her as a younger woman. She must have been quite a bombshell. She was small and petite with beautiful eyes. These she enhanced with mascara and eyeliner well into her last days.
Ena was a well recognised figure running around town always searching for the best buy. She could make a penny go further than any one I have ever known.
Nearly blind Ena Giddy, well into her 90's would walk from Hill House down to Market Square and then hitch a ride home with her heavy parcels. These antics caused consternation from the public and often I would be asked "where are her children? How can any one let an old lady like this live on her own?" However they did not know Ena Giddy. Ena truly lived and died on her terms. She did not wish to have help nor did she like FGV where she could be cared for. She definitely did not wish to live with her children. Few people who came to serve, pleased her, except for Violet who arrived in the very last years of her life. How we all blessed Violet, Violetta van Heerden to be correct. She truly was "Heaven Sent" and an "Angel" from God.
Ena's family and friends could get frustrated and cross with her, but we loved and respected her for her uncomplaining tenacity in the face of many adversities .In her later years she really did have a tough time. She grieved deeply over the death of her eldest son and then the murder of a a grandson who was at UCT in the prime of his life and then the death of another grandson to Cancer.
She progressively lost her sight and hearing. Eventually being almost totally blind. This handicap curtailed many activities which she had enjoyed like reading and playing bridge. But......... she could still cook and entertain and this she loved to do -organising parties small and large - right up until she died. The last being her 100th Birthday parties that she organised with dear Violetta. She did not wish to have one grand affair at a lovely restaurant as her brother had done for his 100th. Hers were to be intimate, simple, home cooked curry and rice meals in familiar surroundings with those people she loved.
She was a survivor of note. As a teenager she broke her ankle while skiing which was inadequately set. This caused her discomfort all her life.
She had cancer and survived those horrible radium needles, treatment used at the time. She supported the Cancer Association by having Bridge drives in her home. The prizes always being bottles of Marmalade!
After her husband died, while packing up and moving homes she fell and broke her neck. She was in her 80's. The doctors felt she was too old to lie in bed for 6 months so they fitted her with a metal harness from her neck to her thighs. The metal dug into flesh her and caused septic sores, but she never complained. She just continued to pack and unpack.
She broke both hips at different times once lying on the floor the whole night.
She broke her arm while we were on her sons farm but she continued to make marmalade and wash dishes with the good arm. Well there was a whole tree of oranges outside the kitchen needing to be turned int marmalade!
She had Pneumonia and needed oxygen up until the end but she still marvelled at the beauty of the day and would sit on her balcony saying how blessed she was to be in Plettenberg Bay and what a glorious winter we were having.
Ena, was born of Scottish and French parentage in Dumfries Scotland on the 29th June, 1916 in the middle of WW1 and in the middle of summer. She died on the 14th August 2016 one hundred years later in the middle of winter in sunny Plettenberg Bay. How did she come to be here? Well, Ena had a brother Ian Spence, only 18 months older than she was. They were very good friends all their lives - so it was no surprise that she and her mother followed him when he brought his expertise to the mining industry shortly before the beginning of the second World War.
The Spences embraced SA as theirs from the beginning and then Ena consolidated this when she married Allan Giddy an accountant from the Eastern Cape. They had three sons, Ian, Patrick and Peter. They lived in Fish Hoek, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, and finally Allan and Ena retired to Plettenberg Bay in about 1980. The Giddy family had had many a happy holiday previously and so fitted into their new environment quickly and painlessly.
I doubt that I would have attempted to walk the Camino had I not seen Ena and Allan with rock filled packs on their backs striding down Robberg Beach training to hike in the Wye Valley in Wales. If they could walk with back packs so could I.
Beach, Books, Bowls and Bridge took up a lot of her time in those early days, but cooking and caring were very important too. Her home and family were always a priority. With no servants she stocked her pantry with bottles and bottles of preserves and jams. At least 6 bags of oranges were turned into marmalade each July and come October/ November Apricots would become Chutney and Jam. Any little service to Ena was rewarded with a packet of home made rusks or a jar of marmalade. One really feels that Ena oversaw the cooking of this years Marmalade because Violet finished bottling the last of the 6 bags of oranges on Friday and she died on the Sunday after Violet arrived and had given her breakfast. Her two surviving sons Peter and Patrick, their wives and four grand children kept vigil those last few days and Ena on a blessed Sunday morning left this world for the one to come.
Ena started her life by being baptised in both the Catholic and Protestant Faith ( Her mother was French Catholic and her father Scottish Protestant) and died in a similar manner. Good Doctor Nel and Violetta prayed with her in her last days (this I think would have pleased her father) and Patrick arranged for Father from the Catholic Church to give her the last rites. Ena's memorial service was conducted by the Rev. Yvonne Smith in the Anglican Church. Father was present at the service (this I think would have pleased her mother).
Dear, delightful, funny, exasperating, frustrating Ena, may your good soul rest in peace and rise in glory.
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