There’s just no stopping journalist and Umhlanga personality Heléne Griffiths. She told CATHERINE ANDREWS about her road to success
She’s the founder of a successful community newspaper, heads influential associations in Umhlanga, is a recipient of awards, a former rally driver, respected motoring journalist, sought-after motivational speaker and tons more … but Heléne Griffiths is as down to earth as her lace-up takkies.
“I’ve got them in every colour,” she explains. “I can’t wear heels because I live with a bad back so it’s takkies for me!”
The cause of her bad back was a childhood trampoline accident resulting in lower back and neck injuries – and her journey from wheelchair to wheelwoman is a motivational talk that holds audiences enthralled. Heléne’s positive outlook and gritty determination helped her deal with numerous challenges – and when her youngest son was six months old, she became a rally driver.
“My family was horrified,” she recalls. She took part in regional rallies when they lived in Pretoria, always with a female navigator, and called it a day in 1991, shortly after relocating to Durban.
Motoring is in her blood. She moved from presenting a motoring programme on Radio Jacaranda to becoming a motoring journalist and was one of the first woman members of the SA Guild of Motoring Journalists in the late 1970s.
Decades of motoring journalism ensued and she has been a jury member for the Guild’s SA Car of the Year competition for 22 years. She presents motoring courses for women and talks publicly on motoring and motor safety. She also assisted in setting up the women’s website www.cars4women.co.za
In November she will be heading overseas for the inaugural Women’s World Car of the Year award where she will join nine other international women journalists for the announcement of the Women’s World Car of the Year.
A big success in Heléne’s life is the Umhlanga Globe, the much-loved monthly community newspaper that prints only good news.
“I got the idea when I was reading a Johannesburg newspaper. Page two was filled with murders, rapes, corruption and crime and I said to my husband, Wally: ‘I’m going to start a good news newspaper.’”
He laughed and said: “What do you know about newspapers?”
Heléne admitted she knew little but she stuck with the idea and had 33 adverts in her first edition of the Umhlanga Globe. Today, 16 years later, it’s a publishing success story and she is committed to helping small businesses in the Durban North and Umhlanga area.
Her passion for Umhlanga is such that she, along with businessman Myles Buxton, started the Beautifying Umhlanga Together Association (BUTA). It has initiated several projects including the improvement of islands, servitudes and verges by businesses, clean-ups of the CBD and beach, the planting of palms and indigenous trees, efforts to remove graffiti and the Verge of the Year competition.
She is also a founder member of Umhlanga Women Achievers, a networking organisation for businesswomen, and is an honorary Rotarian.
Heléne’s life has not been without hardship. She lost her mother when she was only 15. Both her sons, now in their 30s, were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and in an age when there was little understanding of or information about the condition, raising and educating them could be difficult at times. She had a mastectomy and reconstruction surgery in 1987 but that too has been something she has dealt with as a matter of course.
And, as if her life is not full enough, she is a deacon in St Luke’s Congregational Church, a lay preacher and convener of their annual fete.
She’s in the process of converting her suburban home into a “Glenashley farmhouse”, complete with stone cladding on the exterior and a welcoming farmhouse kitchen inside.
Oh, and she’s a devoted grandmother of three. Truly a woman who likes to make every minute meaningful.