A Spot of Tea, a Dash of Gaiety

Ena Holdsworth is standing in her tidy Glendora home lamenting a reaction she’s having to a pneumonia shot. She pulls up the sleeve of her prim ivory jacket dress to reveal a sore upper arm. “Oh, what a bother,” she says in her crisp English accent. A bother because a Daughter of the British Empire is due any moment to pick her up and take her to celebrate her 90th birthday.

She pulls down her sleeve and shrugs. Stiff upper lip and all that. “Would you like a cup of tea or ginger ale?” she asks, quickly becoming the ever-proper Mrs. Eric Holdsworth, who has entertained dignitaries all over the world.

She has lived in this house for nearly 40 years, with her husband until his death in 1982 and more recently with her only daughter, who died in the spring at age 60 from complications of cancer. Now it’s just Ena and Whiskey, the cocker spaniel, and Kitty, the cat, and many mementos from her globe-trotting past. “Did I tell you my husband arranged all Winston Churchill’s flights during the war?” she asks. “Did I tell you I had a son born in Egypt?”

Then her ride arrives and she is off to meet the rest of the Daughters of the British Empire, who have organized a birthday potluck for Holdsworth, the group’s oldest member. The 17 “Daughters,” who have convened on the patio of one member’s San Dimas home, break out into “Happy Birthday” as Holdsworth enters beaming, then takes a seat to recover. She pretends to wave off the photographs, then, after the fuss dies down, quietly admits, “I used to model when I was young.”

The decidedly British fare includes shepherd’s pie and creamed peas. And in spite of the temperature, which is hotter than Ena’s years, the ladies take a spot of tea with their cake in Royal Albert fine china. Holdsworth is “fun to be around,” says Pat Young, a Daughter.

“She’s the first one to sing ‘Knees Up Mother Brown,’ ” says another, referring to a Cockney pub song. “And she’s a great storyteller.”

Many of Holdsworth’s stories date back two generations to the time when her husband’s career as an aeronautical engineer for British Overseas Airways Corp. took the family to live in Egypt, West Africa, India and the United States, where they settled in 1958. Shortly after she arrived in America, Holdsworth joined the Prince Andrew Chapter of the Daughters of the British Empire to keep alive her traditions and ties to Britain, and to find someone who could also bake decent scones.

Besides keeping the traditions alive, the Daughters’ main cause is to support the British Home, a residence for senior citizens in Sierra Madre, with various fund-raising events and bake sales. “What amazes me about Ena,” says Young, “is that we feel she should be in the British Home. Instead she’s baking to raise money for it.” Holdsworth is particularly known for her bread pudding and sausage rolls.

Thinking of baking reminds her of heat. “I got up at 5 in the morning to do my hair,” she says. “Any later and it’s just too hot. I cut and curl it myself. I have no patience for the beauty salon. I’ve only recently started to turn gray.” She pulls at a tuft of mostly light brown hair for proof. “People think I’m much younger than I am,” she says, laughing.

“She’s always turned out,” says Edwina Clark, Daughters chapter regent. “You never see Ena without her earrings.”

Born in Kent County, England, in 1908, to parents who operated pubs, Holdsworth remembers standing on the flat roof of her family’s three-story home watching the first bombs of World War I raining down and a zeppelin falling from the sky in flames. She married Eric Holdsworth, a Scotsman, when she was 24. The couple had two children, and Ena now enjoys her five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren. She also belongs to the Singing Saints, a choir group from her Presbyterian church that sings at retirement homes, and when she’s up to it, she likes to take a daily swim in her backyard pool.

Though she had worried that the Benadryl the doctor told her to take for her arm would make her sleepy, Holdsworth opens presents and keeps the party going until past 11 p.m. Among her gifts is one particular favorite: a framed photo of her dressed up to meet the Duke of York (that would be Prince Andrew to you non-Anglophiles) when he visited Los Angeles 10 years ago. One of many times in her life she remembers as “simply grand.”

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