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Note: Had dementia in later life. Apparently, my nan was one of the best looking and smartest women in Poplar and was a bit of a goer/flirt. She opened her own stall at 14 selling second hand clothes and never looked back. She stood outside the pub 'The Young Prince' in Kerby Street, but later at Rathbone Street, Canning Town (she was still there in 1957). She chucked my aunt Bec out at the age of 14, because she used to get her to look after Len and Vera when she was working on her stall and didn't like it when aunt Bec wanted to go out and find a job of her own, so that she could earn some money for herself. Aunt Eileen says she first upset Nell, when she ordered a new bed. Nell wanted her to sleep in her bed and she was going to have Len's single one. Aunt Eileen and Uncle Len paid the rent, coal and gas. They were out at work all day and went to aunt Eileen's family at Dagenham at the weekends, but Nell said that aunt Eileen was putting too much coal on the fire and she interfered with their marriage a lot. Nell never gave her children much in the way of presents. Len wanted a bike, but never got one. However, she did give them money for food and sweets, while she was out at her stall all day. Because of the way Nell treated Lenny and Eileen, Eileen wrote to the council one day, asking if they could be considered for a flat of their own, but she foolishly left it on the mantle shelf (sealed) and rushed to work. When she got home, Nell went mad. She had steamed the letter open and read it. She had been in their bedroom, flung all their magazines over the room and thrown the wedding photos they had bought her on the bed with her face scribbled out.
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