A Bermondsey woman celebrated her 100th birthday last week with the Mayor of Southwark.
Edna Mulford had a party on July 15 at Blackfriars Settlement in Borough with friends, family – and Cllr Sunil Chopra, Southwark’s ceremonial mayor since May this year.
Edna, who was raised in Abbeyfield Road in Bermondsey and now lives in Marden Square on Drummond Road, actually reached her centenary on July 8. She also got a letter from the Queen congratulating her on the milestone.
Edna’s long life has also been varied. Before the war, as a teenager, she was a seamstress making dresses for ladies appearing at the court – debutantes, and carried on making dresses for friends and family for a long time. Recalling the Second World War, she remembered seeing guns installed on the railway arches near her house. Later on in the conflict, she moved out of London and worked in a factory making radios.
There was much less demand for skilled dress-making of the kind Edna was trained for after the war, so she worked as a tin-basher and in the Peek Freans biscuit factory, among other jobs.
She married her husband Tom when she was still young, and had their daughter Janet. Sadly Tom died in the early 1960s, and Edna remained single after that. But she remained very active, and enjoyed travelling, spending time with her friends – and even snooker.
Everyone who spoke about Edna, from her daughter Janet, to her grandson Martyn, to her son-in-law Brian and TIna Johnston, who works with elderly people at Blackfriars Settlement, said how lively and funny she had been and still was. Speaking from Edna’s home a few days before her 100th birthday, Janet said: “She just has such an active mind – she’s an amazing mother and a great person.”