Veteran Grahamstown journalist and women’s rights activist to be missed
VETERAN 101-year-old Grahamstown journalist, author and ardent women’s rights activist Thelma Neville died peacefully on Sunday night.
Neville lived through two world wars, the Spanish flu, the Great Depression, the advent and demise of formal apartheid, the decolonisation of most of Africa, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the unravelling of the Soviet Union, and the birth of democracy in South Africa.
She had a passion for politics which she mingled with her love of writing.
Born on July 22 1916, Neville began her career in journalism at the Argus newspaper in Cape Town while still a teenager, to fund her university studies.
She read for a BA degree majoring in English and history.
According to close family friend Nicky Turner, she married her husband, Geoff, in 1951 and they moved to Grahamstown in 1952 where she was to remain for the rest of her life.
A prolific journalist, she wrote for the Daily Dispatch, the Sunday Times and most other major publications in the country, in both English and Afrikaans.
“Her articles were published in papers as far afield as Edinburgh and London,” Turner said.
Neville was the regional representative for SABC news for 40 years and covered the 1994 and subsequent elections.
Later in life she wrote children’s stories for radio. She wrote two books, More Lasting than Bronze, about the construction of the 1820 Settlers Monument, and A Story of Rhodes which she co-authored with Turner’s late father, and Neville’s dear friend, journalist Richard Buckland.
She was a leading fundraiser of the R30-million it took to build the 1820 Settlers Monument building, now home to the mammoth National Arts festival .
She was a leading force in organising and pulling off the International Convention of Women there in 1976 which broke the race barriers of the time.
In the same year she was sent by the SABC to report on the International Women’s conference in Iran.
She was also elected president of the National Council of Women in South Africa and was a member of the Rhodes Women’s Association.
As a result of her contribution to Grahamstown she was invited to sign the Golden Book which honours those who have served the city in an outstanding manner.
Neville drove until the age of 99, before finally agreeing to others chauffeuring her around.
She moved to Brookshaw Retirement Home in Grahamstown in April last year, shortly before her 101st birthday.
She celebrated both her 100th and 101st birthday in style – waltzing with gusto to The Blue Danube by Strauss with her brother, Vaughan Thorndike, when she turned 100.
Neville was beloved in the Grahamstown community and was renowned for her writing, wicked sense of humour and her love of cigarettes and discreet shots of whisky with her journalist mates Professor Mike Whisson and Mike Loewe.
Turner said she had died as she had lived – on her own terms.
“She smoked her cigarettes right up until the end and was not above sneaking one in her room at Brookshaw, much to the consternation of the staff.”
Neville died peacefully in her sleep at Brookshaw on Sunday evening.
She is survived by her half-brother Vaughan and nephew Michael Vincent.
Turner said the details of the memorial service would be announced soon.