Eugene May was born in Boksburg, Transvaal on April 22nd 1949 into the Gericke family. Her father was a carpenter in the gold mines. There were 4 children in the family, the youngest of whom was Eugenie. At 8years old, Eugenie’s mom died and within 2years, evil stepmother arrived with 4 children of her own. The Cinderella experience made Eugenie want to leave the house as soon as school finished which she did at the age of 18.
She started her grown-up life alone at the Odyssey flats in Hillbrow, where her Big Sister Nellie helped her move to get out of Boksburg.
Hillbrow was very different in those days – it was hyper cosmopolitan with night-clubs, bookshops, strange music of all genres blaring and 24hour cafes that brought all kinds of people and their cultures from everywhere. A new world that was very different compared with her hometown.
Eugene married for a few months. It didn’t work out but she got her gift – an English surname – Hardy. Suddenly the world of advertising opened the doors for her. She started with a small agency and from there others and finally to Greys Philips Mundel and Blake as Creative Director and TBWA Hunt Lascaris.
She won the Louries Award Grand Prix in 1981 and afterwards spent a few years living alone on Linksfield Ridge when she met Steve. In 1994 she dropped consumer copy writing and founded Storytelling.co.za to focus on stories used in culture, change, values, lifeskills and being human.
Eugenie wrote a number of books, stories, scripts, videos, adverts, graphic design, campaigns, song lyrics, Life-skill text books for children and plays. She was also an avid reader, crossword solver, Mom of 3, friend, cook, confidante, wife, astrologer, deep converationalism and all around creative.
She leaves behind her beloved friends and children Stephen, Tristan, Shari-Claire and Steve-dad.
Here you can see some ads. from Eugenie’s showreel as they were in the 70s and 90s made for TV and cinema (bioscope).
Eugene May Banhegyi 22nd April 1949 – 22nd March 2024
I Am
I Am Tired
I Am Alive
I Am Loving
I Am Memory
I Am Grasping for connection
I Am Imagining a fantastic new world
I Am scared of being alone
I Am Finished
I Am Beginning
I Am The pain of humanity
I Am Sad when people suffer
I Am Judgement
I Am Revenge
Eunoia – all I ask
All I ask is silence
So I can hear my own thoughts think themselves
Sit there
Be quiet
Write quietly away at your mousey thoughts
Hush
So I can listen to my eunoia
And quietly write to others who would understand
Be quiet
Read a book
Knit a stitch
Just sit and shut yourself away
You are not interesting
You are not worthy of words
You cannot speak
Your voice is gone
Stop listening to other words that blemish my thoughts
Hush
Don’t cry
Soon you will be dead to me.
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8 replies on “Eugenie”
ingenious and inspiring – my conversations will be left all the poorer by her absence
! am so saddened to hear that. She was an absolute legend, both for her talents as a writer and more so her compassion as a person in the brutal environment of the ad agency, especially HuntLascaris, when I met her. Thank you for letting me know, our world was richer having her in it. Our deepest condolences.
Wow good memories and a lot of hard work, Auntie Juen will be remembered as I I new her with all the Troul stories. You are safe and in the best place ever. DENNIS HOGG.
What a talent and what a Soul she had.
Eugenie was a highly talented heavyweight copywriter and storyteller RIP Genie my friend. I miss you.
Eugenie helped me process my family history through lifescripts. She had a warmth and realness about her that I could trust in. Rest in peace dear friend.
Show me a toothy grin in a shattered reflection of a mirror from other worlds while in half asleep. Show me whisps of a presence of in places you’ve been as you drift between worlds while I ask for forgiveness. For being too quiet About the injustice, we laugh at the chance that history repeats itself, reversed through generations as we’re trying to move forward. No one will see that you are right here, your arms outstretched welcoming unrequited embraces. Our freckles were mirrored and sat side by side as so did we, marks of our mothers and mothers before us have been passed through time and landed on me. A dot under my left eye resembles a tear and one on my throat reminds me to speak of genies and dragons and of love and of magic. Please remind me of your smile again when you pass through, darting from planets to stars and through time. Here I await you till dust stirs again and we repeat all the patterns the world wrote for us. The stories of tellers and the tellers of stories, of theives and of lies, love and of glory, of birth and of death and holes in our stories.
Such incredible person!