#YourStory – Serving the community

Helping others and assisting your neighbours is vital for the existence of a peaceful and functioning community.

For Mrs Annie Bell (74), who has been an Edenvale resident since 1967, helping people and assisting the community is second nature.

Mrs Bell, who was born in the United Kingdom during the end of World War II, emigrated with her parents to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) when she was five years old. “I remember when the air raid sirens went off, we dived under our kitchen table, there was always a sense of danger and fear,” said Mrs Bell.

She said that she remembers when her family had just arrived in the country and her and her dad went to the general store. At the store Mrs Bell said that the shop owner gave her a big brown paper bag and told her to fill up the bag with whatever sweets she wanted.

“I looked around the store and nothing really caught my eye,” she said. Instead of taking sweets she picked up a tub of butter. When the shop owner asked why she wasn’t taking any sweets, Mrs Bell told the shop owner, “I want the butter so that I can spread it on my bread and see my reflection.”

She said when the shop owner heard this, he cried. “I think he first inspired me to help other people,” said Mrs Bell.

Mrs Bell later went to boarding school in Newcastle after which she studied to be a teacher.

“I’ve always had a passion for teaching and helping. I aspire to make a difference in the lives of others,” she said.

After moving to Edenvale Mrs Bell applied her passion and opened a nursery school, which she ran with the help of her mother.

Mrs Bell and her mother ran the school providing half-day care. With societal changes and mothers getting jobs and needing full-time nursery schools, the attendance rate started dropping and Mrs Bell stopped running the school. “It was the saddest day of my life,” she said.

Mrs Bell then went into advertising, starting as a temporary worker, and climbed her way up the corporate ladder to an executive position. She retired at the age of 65.

In 2011 Mrs Bell said that Mrs Linda McKenzie came to speak to her husband about joining the Edenvale Community Policing Forum (CPF).

“I had always loved the thought of what the CPF was doing ,” said Mrs Bell who also became a member alongside her husband.

After being a member Mrs Bell became the secretary of the Edenvale CPF. “I loved everything, the ups and the downs. Mrs Mckenzie was an inspiration to me,” she said.

Mrs Bell was secretary for the ECFP for five years.

During that time she went on raids and the best part was the relationship formed with SAPS, the EMPD and the community.

When asked what advice she could give the community about being involved, Mrs Bell said, “Community members must go to the month-end CPF meetings and take an interest in their town. I am worried that the community members are becoming apathetic.”

#YourStory