Friday, February 27, 2009

My Mum 08/16/1929 - 07/21/2004


Eileen Hicken was born August 16, 1929 in Cape Town, South Africa, daughter to Isabel and Frank Voges. She was sister to Joyce, Audrey and Yvonne. She arrived in England for a holiday with Joyce in 1950.

Eileen started her nurses training in the same year, at St. Mary's hospital. She worked a year at St. Mary's (54 -55), a year at St. Albrights (55 - 56), and 23 years at Colchester Maternity hospital (69 - 92). Her contribution in providing a vital service to mum's and their babies was phenomenal. She gained personal satisfaction and made many friends throughout the duration of her career. She retired in 1992 after 26 years of nursing.

Eileen met Phil a soldier, in Colchester and after a romantic courtship, married on March 7, 1953. They enjoyed 51 loving years together, enhancing their relationship with a son David, and three daughters, Mary, Lorna and Yvonne.

Eileen was an aunt to Kathy in Ireland, Ann in Australia, Della in New Zealand, she had a nephew, Johan in South Africa, and her closest nieces and nephew, Marilyn, Felicity and Glen in England.

Throughout her life Eileen loved to broaden her knowledge of the world. She took in students from all over who came to Colchester to learn English. She traveled to many places in the world and returned to visit her home, Cape Town after 48 years.

Eileen had many friends who admired her. Her three closest friends were Millie, who became an aunt to all of Eileen's family, Connie who nursed with her from the begining, and Anne who nursed with her at the maternity hospital.

She loved her grandchildren and they loved to visit her. They were always surprised with her latest find from a car boot sale.

Vanessa enjoyed having her grandma as her hair dressing model.
Megan and her grandma enjoyed each other's company, having a chat and a laugh.

Jack loved adventures at the beach hut and Friday woods with his grandma.

Jenna's last visit with her nanny was full of laughs and funny sketches nanny thought her very talented.

When nanny visited Folkestone, Chris looked forward to his visit with her at the Burstyn Hotel, especially watching a show with her.

She was proud of Thomas in all his endeavours, including his studies at university.

James would willingly drop everything to drive his grandma wherever she needed to go.

She knew Sophie's love of chocolate, and would always appear with a big bar of Galaxy to Sophie's delight.

One of the most fun filled family events that was enjoyed annually, was the Boxing Day trips to the Mercury Theatre to watch the Christmas Pantomime.

Eileen knitted many sweaters for children in Africa. She collected money to buy goats for the poor families in Africa. Her family will continue to collect donations in her name for this very worthy cause.

Eileen enjoyed the volunteer work she did with the seniors at the Activity Centre. It gave her pleasure serving tea to the "old dears" and listening to their tales.

Some of Eileen's loves were:

Her family
Her grandchildren
Her career
Roses
Travel
History
Helping children and their families in Africa
And watching sports and athletics on television

Rest in Peace, Mum

Sunday, February 22, 2009

BASKETBALL

Basketball Team
Here I am many years ago sitting on the left end of the bench. Only 5 feet tall and still I managed to play on the girl's basketball team. Way back then (circa 1970) there were only a few other schools that had girl's teams.

Our coach was David Cook who was our geography teacher (not pictured here). He was pretty good, we did pretty well I think. I also used to score for the boy's team. The boy on the right end is Julian Castle who scored for the girl's team.

Last semester I watched all of my school's girl's games, they did really well. They got to the semi finals that they won, and then on to the finals. They won the finals and went onto the regionals. They did really well however lost the last game by one point. The girls are amazing.

This semester I am following the boy's team. The two teams play very different games. The boys so far are in the middle of the semi finals. Next game is sometime this week.

At the last sports awards assembly the girls showed off their pennent for the finals win. All the kids who played on any team got awards of some sort. The parent's of the girls who played basketball surprised the 2 coaches with basket balls signed by the team. Then I was surprised when Vanessa, another teacher, and I received an award for being the best teacher fans!

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Sad News

Yesterday I told you about sweet little Cora fighting a tremendous battle. How sad I was today when I read that she lost that battle. I can't imagine the sadness her family is going through now. Keep them in your prayers.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

The Macs

I came across this blog quite by accident from a scrapbook blog who commented on the story. I sat and read the story and cried. Then I went back to the beginning of the blog when Jess and Joel gave birth to their little Cora 11 months ago.

After an ear infection and little Cora not feeling herself, he parents took her to the doctor who quickly saw things were much worse than an ear infection. Late in January they took her to the hospital where it was discovered that she had Neuroblastoma. She has had 4 surgeries since then, removing the worst, having tubes put in her ears, releasing fluid build up around her heart, and her parents and uncle have been updating their blog to keep everyone informed. The family have a very strong religious belief, and are asking everyone to pray for them. If you are interested or can help with prayers, please go to their website and make a comment to help the family know that others are concerned for them.

It is when we read things like this that we realise how lucky we are, even when we think things are bad, someone else, somewhere else is battling much worse scenerios and are doing so with dignity.

I just wanted to blog about this in hopes that others would read it and then send their prayers to whomever they think can help.

http://themcclenahans.blogspot.com/