There is a R5 gym class in the city led by an 86-year-old high altitude hiker which is raising the spirits of women over 60.
Sixteen of them gathered at Dot.Com Cafe in Berea, KuGompo, to celebrate Maureena “Nookie” Middleton’s birthday, and to tell her how much she had changed their lives.
They lined up to have their say about the woman who turned her soul-obliterating loss of her life partner, CNA and Murray & Roberts director Leonard Middleton, when she was only 54 into a quest to find peace and tranquillity in mountains of the world.
It took her five years to recover, but it also took her to the Everest base camp, the top of Kilimanjaro, Mount Eyebrus, the Canadian Rockies, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and the original 315km Camino Primitivo (Original Way) on the Camino de Santiago network.
She also did the 154km West Highland Way trail, which felt appropriate since she is the daughter of Scottish immigrant parents.
She also traversed many of the high peaks of SA, among them her favourite, the Drakensberg.
But today was a moment when the many local women whose lives she also uplifted and refreshed came together to thank her for the Gym Trim Club class every Monday and Wednesday at 8.30am sharp in the humble premises of the St Johns Ambulance Service Hall in Southernwood.
She starts with a warm-up, workouts with 3kg weights, chairs, balls and bands, and moves on to end with floorwork and bands.
A favourite among the scratchy old CDs which they play for encouragement is Johnny Called the Chemist by SA band Falling Mirror, a classic covered decades later by rockers Robin Auld and Wonderboom.
“And the joke is that the chemist never comes when we really need one,” Zoe Smit said.
There is a famous moment where she brings her feet over her head and everyone hears her feet touch the floor — “and amazingly most of us have learnt do it”, quips one of the class.
But this is just the framework: everyone who arrives at the class becomes a friend — Nookie knows their story, physically and emotionally and tailors all her exercises for every individual.
After 60 “solid” minutes, it’s tea and a chat, and this is where the women share companionship and friendship which inspires them to live lives of fun and meaning.
Technically, she says, the goal is muscle tone: menopause has taken a toll, but some women have had hip and knee replacements, there are heart issues.
But there is another dimension: many of the women have suffered emotional injuries.
Depression and anxiety can come from loss, mourning, children moving away, relationship collapse and a sense of worthless invisibility which comes from forced retirement as job holders in the economy and home.
She marvels at how, once they have made that first step into her class, strength returns.
And how they love the last move, when Nookie raises her arms in the air, and says: “Now we throw away our negative energy” and makes one last swooping bend move, arms dangling to the floor. It is one deeply profound exhale.
But today the table is full of love for their Nookie.
Each has written six cards, a rainbow of their feelings for her. They proclaim: “Dynamic”, “Funny”, “Caring”, “Brave”, “Big heart!”, “Warm”, “Stunning”, “Precious”, “Loyal friend”.
She says of the death of her childhood sweetheart — they met as youths in the rough mining town of Welkom when she was only 14: “When my husband died, I decided to live my life as though every day was my last.”
They married when she was 19, and raised three children in Blairgowrie, Johannesburg.
He rose in business, but important family time was spent in the mountains.
They hiked the Magaliesberg, the Drakensberg and the Cape mountains.
She raised the children but volunteered to work at a children’s hospice and Hope and Homes.
When they learnt he had pancreatic cancer and would only live for six weeks, her idyllic life turned to a trauma which took her five years to get over.
He had been sporting, did not smoke, drank lightly.
“He was so vibrant. I thought I have to find a life. I went into the high altitudes. As I went higher, everything fell away.
“It was so spiritual. I started to feel renewed. I stood in awe of it, especially for allowing me the privilege of being there.
“Problems meant nothing. I was at peace. Everything I needed was in my backpack.”
And this new journey started right here, she did the Alexandria Trail through the forests and along the beach to Woody Cape.
The return through sand dunes felt epic. Dune 7 in the Namib would come. Africa’s highest dune at almost 400m.
Nookie leads her classmate friends on weekly dune climbs on the metro coastline, and is still metres ahead when they reach the top.
Her arrival at the gym was inauspicious. She joined to “get to know people” and within a few weeks the instructor left and she was asked to carry on the class.
At 86 she thanks her ancestors for her genetic inheritance but says everything we do starts in the mind.
“You achieve things in your mind and then tone your body to do it.”
She agrees with the younger generation constantly reminding their elders to drink water since they lose their thirst sensation.
But she also has one or two glasses of red wine every week.
She laughs at how doctors looking at her scan results had proclaimed the “best brain we have ever seen in an 85-year-old”.
She has also stayed away from antibiotics saying: “I had them once only, in 1948. It was penicillin.”
And in all of this, as her friends gather round and wish her well and depart, she laughs, and there are tears.
Daily Dispatch
