Born in Bloemfontein 75 years ago, Ani Fiske has seen a lot and done a lot in her lifetime. Residing at Evergreen Diep River for the past four years, she says, “I’m at a ‘now or never’ stage in my life.

If something can’t be done in six months, it’s off my list. After two hip replacements I’m not doing the Our Lady of Fatima pilgrimages in Portugal anymore, but waking up in Istanbul and hearing the first call to prayer from the Blue Mosque is staying on my bucket list! Plus the northern lights – those magnificent dancing rainbows…”

Movement and dance have been a big part of Ani’s life. She was a professional ballerina and she trained as a therapist, using movement to make her diagnoses. Her dancing career was almost ended before it began, when she was involved in a serious car crash when she was 15. A fractured skull and a compound fracture of her spine landed her in an induced coma. She underwent a procedure that had a success rate of only 3%, but she pulled through. “I always celebrate 6 September as my L’chaim Day because I had a second chance; it still makes me tearful to talk about it.” Ani recalls, “The pinnacle of my creative profession was dancing in Frank Staff’s Transfigured Night, scored by Arnold Schoenberg. And I danced Myrtha in Giselle.” Her own work aside, she also saw live performances of all-time greats like Rudolf Nureyev at Lincoln Center in New York.

Ani has three children and four grandchildren. Her daughter, Amanda (46), has two young boys; and her sons Justin (44) and Daniel (38), each have a little girl. She laughs, “My boys gave me girls and my girl gave me boys!” Ani has a foster child too. “Her name is Amanda, after my daughter – the belief being that if something is named after you, then you’ll look after it!” She says her strong convictions about respecting all people, regardless of race, go back a long way. “My mother was unable to breast-feed. I was raised by a Sotho woman.

I loved her like a mother.” An inscription on a statue of former Free State President Jan Brand, in a Bloemfontein street, where she had to pass every day on her way to school became her motto. “It read ‘Alles sal regkom as elkeen sy plig doen’ (Everything will be fine if we all do our bit)’ and it taught me that if I had any expectations in life then it was up to me to make those things happen.”