When George and Betty Smith gave birth to their second daughter Carole they didn’t know they had produced a whirlwind of chatter and mischief. ‘I love talking,’ is a phrase Carole used a lot during our interview, writes Michael Holland.
George was a lift engineer for over 40 years ‘so they gave him a watch when he retired,’ says his proud daughter. Betty worked the night shift in Peek Frean’s where ‘She used to come home with broken biscuits.’ Carole laughed because she knew what she was going to say next. ‘I don’t know if she nicked ‘em or bought ‘em, but we always had broken biscuits’.
To get away from working nights Betty got a Nursery Assistant job at Snowsfields, the school that Carole attended: ‘I couldn’t get away with anything! She’d always be looking over the fence at me being naughty!
Carole liked Junior school ‘but for all the wrong reasons’. I asked her to explain. ‘Well, when I went to school you didn’t really learn a lot, did ya? I don’t really remember doing anything at school apart from reading and mucking about, but I did enjoy it.’ She then went on to Aylwin (‘proper school’) where she enjoyed, English, History, P.E ‘and mucking about’. She left with O and A Levels, proving that she did learn a lot.
Out of school, Carole would play runouts and Tin Tan Tommy with friends on the Kipling Estate or be on her roller skates: ‘I used to put them on in the morning and not take them off until the night-time’ She then recounted a tale of a roller skate race with a life-long friend that they still argue over today: ‘She only beat me cos I skidded on some oil,’ she claims all these years later. ‘I fell over and nearly killed meself,’ she adds after seeing doubt in my eyes. ‘I was always falling over, though; my mum used to call me Cack-Handed Carole!’ Once again her infectious laugh made me smile.
‘We also made a camp up in the water tank, which must’ve been really unhygienic… It was dark and there was all pigeon poo in there! I used to get up there with me skates on but getting back down was dangerous. I fell out of there loadsa times… My legs and knees were permanently bruised.’
The Red Rover bus ticket was another door that opened up to days of adventure for the young Carole: ‘We’d just get lost all over London on buses and try to find our way home at night-time, getting by on a cheese sandwich that our mums had stuck in our pockets… Sometimes we’d go fruit-picking in Walthamstow.’
I needed to ascertain if this was fruit-picking or nicking. ‘Well, it’s just there, innit? There ain’t no one guarding it and telling you you can’t, so you just have it! Now they call it foraging.’ We both burst out laughing at this semi-logical justification.
On the countryside theme: ‘I met a cow once when I was taken camping. It was the first time I’d ever seen one and it was terrifying, they’re massive, ain’t they? I’m still scared of ‘em.’
Carole fondly remembers going with her sister and mum to stand astride the middle of Tower Bridge where the two halves met. ‘I still love doing it now to look down through the crack to the water and feeling it wobble as the traffic goes over.’
Evenings were spent at Charterhouse youth club playing games with friends. ‘I tried Brownies once; that didn’t go well… Me mum was told not to bring me again!’ Carole explains that ‘there were too many rules’.
Carole’s work-life began as a cleaner down East Street Market at weekends, with office cleaning before and after school during the week, which meant she had money to stay on and get qualifications.
Eventually, school gave way to full-time work, and youth clubs to pubs: ‘I used to spend all my money on clothes and going out; the Fort, the Apples & Pears, Samsons, the Dun Cow, Gillies… I started going in ‘em when I was about 14,’ she reveals, adding that she often got chucked out for being underage.
Her first ‘proper’ job was at Southwark Council in a trainee scheme: ‘They kept putting me in places like the legal department office where I had to be quiet, so that didn’t work; it was really boring… I used to get told off for breaking things, wearing inappropriate clothes, being silly…’ After a spell in Spa Road Housing Office, Carole discovered that she would sometimes have chairs thrown at her. ‘Luckily, there was a barrier so nothing really hit me.’
Nevertheless, Carole enjoyed a good relationship with her Training Officer (‘He was very patient with me’) so asked if he could send her somewhere that she ‘could talk a lot’. She found herself in the Meals On Wheels office that she recalls as, ‘Brilliant, you could talk all day, chatting to the old ladies on the phone and doing visits’. Carole visited a day centre quite regularly so once again pestered her Training Officer for a move there. ‘He gave in just to shut me up but I loved it there. You could chat all day and knit and play bingo – It wasn’t like work.’
She met her husband Steve at work; they spent many years together and had two sons (Joe is a Primary School Teacher, and Stephen a builder) before a quiet wedding at Peckham Registry Office: ‘I can’t stand weddings so never told anyone we were getting married until a week before. Our 6-year-old son was best man and we went for a drink in the White Horse after. It was lovely.
A true Bermondsey Girl, Carole remembers fondly going with her older sister Lynne and her mum to stand in the middle of Tower Bridge and stand astride where the two halves meet. ‘I still love doing it now to look down through the crack to the water and feeling that wobbly bit as the traffic goes over.’
After working with the elderly and those with learning disabilities since she was 18 in day centres and residential homes Carole knew she had found her dream job and never returned to office work. She is now the Learning Disability Service Manager for Bede House Association and loves her work: ‘You never have the same day twice, so I never get bored… Every day we challenge ourselves and the people that use the centre, and that makes life more exciting…Even when I’ve been really busy I still go home and know something nice has happened that day…’
Carole Brady is genuinely a happy soul. She now lives off Southwark Park Road: ‘I’ve only ever moved two miles my whole life,’ she says like a true Bermondsey girl. And is pleased to reveal that she has always worked close to home. ‘I had a job in Lambeth once where I had to get on a bus! I didn’t like that. I walked it one day, and then thought to myself, “Mad cow, what did you do that for?”’
Photos: M. Holland
