Toti stalwart, Gwen Ellis bids her home of 60 years a fond farewell when she moves to Cape Town on 29 March.
Gwen taught many of Toti’s youngsters during her 40-year stint as an English teacher at Warner Beach and Kingsway High School.
She always knew she wanted to be a teacher. “My sister used to pretend to play piano on a log to our fowls when I was very young and I used to teach them. The fowls came to us because they thought we had food, but I actually thought they were listening to me,” she laughed.
Gwen was born in Kranskop and matriculated at Greytown High School. She did her teaching degree at Boston College and arrived in Toti as a newly qualified teacher keen to influence the next generation. “I was 20-and-a-half-years old when I arrived and I’m now 80-and-a-half-years old when I leave. I was absolutely blessed to have taught at Kingsway, where I got to work with the most amazing teachers, headmasters and pupils.
I was also blessed to be part of St Mary’s Anglican Church in Warner Beach, which was my spiritual home for 60 years and it was a huge blessing to be a member of the Kingsburgh Lions Club for 17 years. Through Lions I was introduced to a different sort of commitment.”
Gwen met her husband Brian on Warner Beach in 1956 and the two were married by the end of that year. He died in 2005 after they were married for 48 years. They have three children – Brett (54), Jackie (52) and Gregory (47), and she is grandmother to five grandchildren, four of whom live in the Cape.
“I taught all my children over the years,” said Gwen, who ‘retired’ in 1993, but then went on to teach at Durban Girls College, where she also became head of the English department and acting deputy headmistress.
“I’m busy writing my memoirs, which I started years ago and that should keep me busy in my retirement. I plan to join the Lions club where I will be living and I’ve already checked out the church in my new area.
My daughter is an interior decorator and she runs her own business, so I won’t be idle. I am also a prolific reader.
I will miss the people the most when I leave Toti, especially my old friends. I will miss having my own car and being independant. I will miss my church friends. I will miss everything about Toti, but especially the people, because the people make the town special.
This is farewell, not goodbye, because I will come back on holiday. Thank you to Toti, everyone is blessed to live there. If anyone ever comes to Cape Town and doesn’t come to visit me, I will hear about it.”
