Getting to School

Esther Annenberg: Horse Drawn Ambulance

Esther, known as Etty, was born in 1909 in Upton Park in London. Etty went to Venetian Road Special School in Camberwell, London from the age of five, going on to an apprenticeship in dressmaking at Holdren's department store in Peckham. At the time of interview Etty was 104 years old.

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Esther Annenberg

Here Etty talks about her daily journey to school from her family home in Bow.

  • Esther Annenberg
https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/horse-drawn-ambulance.mp3

Transcript

I always remember going across the Rye in this ambulance, horse drawn this was at the time, 'cause there wasn't motor cars so much then, and I used to think 'They're taking me through the country,' when you was kids you don't know what you're doing. Going out of school I wouldn't go, I used to bunk off. I remember I was going across the Rye to go to school and that, I said to the nurse, I said 'I want to go the toilet' and I said, 'Can you drop me by the park?' 'Cause in the park they'd got a toilet, and I went in there and I went out the other side. I bunked away. And I made sure, if anybody followed me, I made sure they never did.

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