Getting to School

Esther Annenberg: Horses

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 describes going to school in a horse drawn bus.

Transcript

They used to come and knock on the door and my mum used to take me to the door, put me on the bus and I’d say goodbye to her. We used to go through the Rye. I used to say, 'Oh it’s lovely country, isn’t it?'
Funny when you’re kids, though, you only had to see a bit of green and you was in the country. I don’t know what county I was in but I used to think, 'Oh, lovely.'
Cos I was in the ambulance. It was horses in those days. Yeah, they were lovely. Well they used to pick other people up on their way, pick up all the kids.
We used to knock on their doors and their parents would bring them out or sometimes they could walk out and that and then they’d get on and we used to sing going along. They used to say, 'You’re not on a beano'. We used to say, 'We are'.

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