(Bev Pule)
artSMart is sad to
announce that former SABC Durban radio programme organizer and
broadcaster, Bev Pule, died at 06h00 on Sunday morning, January 11. She was born in
1947 and had just had her 68th birthday three days before.
“Bev Pule joined the SABC in 1977,” says her daughter,
Candace Steyn. “Mom's first position in Radio South Africa was as secretary to
Humphrey Gilbert - who ran the department in Durban. She worked for all the
announcers as well: Roy Holtzhausen, Don Ridgway, Desmond Wingham, Monica
Fairall, David Lloyd and Midge Dogherty. She was the busy bee amongst all these
talented creative people and she adored them all. She booked the actors for
radio plays such as The Men from the Ministry and later on,
after Midge passed, she took over the Wishing
Well children’s programme under her own name Bev's Birthday Book.
“There were many retrenchments in the 90's and Bev sadly had
to go,” explains Candace. “She was devastated - she adored what she did and
loved everyone at SAFM. She did carry on with part-time work for SAFM doing
transcripts of the various programmes which were uploaded to the internet.
“Due to her weight, Mom began to suffer pressure on her
bones and joints. However, she kept up her love for swimming and swam every day
for many years. As her health deteriorated, she began a keen interest in
current classical music - which she would listen to whilst lying down. This
evolved into a great passion and she began a never-ending hobby of compiling
her own selections of music onto CD. When I had both my little boys she brought
them, and us all, huge enjoyment by making children’s CD's full of songs,
stories and rhymes.
“My mom was all I had in my life until I married at age 32. We
were best friends who both shared a passion for the water and for music. Mom
hung on for many years in pain. However, the pain became greater than her
moments of joy which started to ebb fast in the last six months. She was a
strong and sincere Christian lady who I have the greatest love and respect for.
Now she is safe and well in the arms of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Bev Pule contributed a
highly amusing and informative column to artSMart titled Musings of a Meandering Mind which amounted
to some 22 columns from 2006 to the end of 2008. In her final column
published on January 1, 2009, she wrote the following:
“All that’s left in
signing off what will be my last piece is for me to thank Caroline Smart for
the opportunity to write for her column these past couple of years and share my
opinions on life and, more often, on music. But there is now a NEW life that has
entered my family, in the form of my first grandchild, and it’s going to be
both a thrill and a challenge to focus my attention not only on much
baby-sitting but also in attempting to inspire in him the same love for music
that I have enjoyed for around sixty years! Should you ever hear that a lad
named Jordan Daniel Steyn has some sort of claim to fame (for his music) by the
time I’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, perhaps you’ll allow Baboushka
Bev a little of the credit?”
May I end with a few
words I once heard from Oprah’s lips (though I think they came from the pen of
Maya Angelou!) which go like this: May God hold you always in the palm of His
hand – but never squeeze TOO tightly!"
A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, January 21, at
10h00 at the Glenridge Church on top of Durban station (off Umgeni Road).
More tributes to follow.
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