Ron Smith Care
Centre (RSCC) Cedar Park resident Anne Brokensha celebrated her 101st
birthday on 28 January, surrounded by family, friends and RSCC carers.
Anne’s wonderful
life spans three continents.
Her life story
tells of a challenging childhood that equipped her with numerous skills,
wartime intrigue and, above all, a strong, nurturing personality that has been
her family’s guiding light.
Born in India
in 1921 to British parents, who were based there during World War I, Anne and
her family soon returned to England. The post-war depression then prompted them
to move to South Africa, where they bought a farm in Maclear in the Eastern
Cape.
When Anne was seven,
she started school as a weekly boarder. She and her dad would ride over the
hills every Monday, on their horses, Ginger and Charles, and her father would
fetch her again on Fridays.
Her happy early
life came to an abrupt end at the age of nine, when her mother died, trying to
save their Angora rabbits from a burning hutch. Anne’s father then took a job
teaching maths in Malvern, outside Durban.
When her father
remarried, the family moved to Egypt. As there was no school in the village, Anne
was home schooled in maths and general knowledge, by her father. Her stepmom Aileen
then became ill and died, with young Anne, then 11, tearfully holding her hand.
Anne did her
high schooling in Yorkshire in England. She rode the 9km to school and back on
her bicycle, in all sorts of Yorkshire weather, and wrote ‘Matric’ at 15. After
completing secretarial and French courses at a business college, she stayed
with a French family in Paris, learning commercial French and shorthand, before
returning to Egypt and her father and his new wife. She then attended a German
school there and become as fluent in German as she was in French.
During World
War II, Anne – just 17 – left her first job as private secretary to work for
the Land Army in support of the war effort. She had to milk cows and toss hay
onto a lorry, and later took on the milk delivery. She had to quickly teach
herself to drive and, by herself, load the milk crates onto the truck and
deliver them in the foggy blackout – a heavy and terrifying job.
She then put
her name down to serve in the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Because of her
knowledge of German and French, she was sent for training and posted to
Withernsea, and from there to Ceylon, to keep naval watch.
Little did she
know that the signals from enemy ships and U-boats that she picked up on two
monitors simultaneously, were being sent for decoding to Bletchley Park, which
was the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the war.
She later
received a medal for the part she played at Bletchley Park. As required, she
had signed the Secrecy Act, which was only dissolved in 1975, and so she kept
her role in the war secret from her husband for close on 50 years!
At age 97, Anne
wrote a book, Memories of 97 Years, so that her family could know what her life
had entailed.
She has lived
at RSCC since 2015, and survived Covid-19 in 2020.
On her 100th
birthday, her daughters collected messages and photographic contributions from
friends and family, eventually ending up with 86 pages of wonderful memories
for Anne to browse through for months to come!
