Relationships

Esther Annenberg: Lovely Mum

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 remembers her mum.

Transcript

Mind you, I had a lovely mum. She nursed me, I don’t know how cos whatever they done to me when I was a baby, god only knows. And she carried me everywhere I mean, I had lovely brothers and sisters but she looked after me and when she went I lost a friend. Shame, but still, it’s her time to go, it’s her time to go.
She worked hard all her life though. Never had a lot of money but we had a lovely life and she used to take us everywhere. She used to take us out on picnics. We had a lovely picnic at Peckham Rye park, up on the hill there. Did you go up that hill? Oh I walked up. Yeah, I walked up in those days, I can’t now. Ah that’s what I miss. I miss all those little things that we done when we were kids, you know, shame,you don’t realise you’re going to get older. You think you’re going to stay young like that all your life, but you don’t.
My mum always used to say, “If you can help anyone, do it. Never do a bad turn, though and thank god I never did. That’s one thing then, we were always brought up to help one another. Even if we had to go without ourselves, we went.

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