A bingo-loving pensioner, who has devoted her life to helping others by volunteering in her community was treated to right royal knees up at the weekend when she turned 80.
The Borough-based community woman, affectionately known as Patty P was calling the shots at her birthday bash with a game of bingo and was visited by Pearly Kings and Queens for a dance.
And despite being diagnosed with lung cancer she has took it in her stride, like everything else in her life.
Born in Peckham in 1943 Pat ‘Patty P’ Notton told the News she never really knew her parents: “My parents had nine children altogether – but back then if you couldn’t afford to raise all your children, some would go into a children’s home.
She explained she doesn’t remember much about her childhood – “I think I’ve blocked it out. I found it hard to find out that not all of us were in the home.
“I got in touch with some of my sisters later on in life.”
Pat raised four children: Mark, Jenny, Simon and Debbie and brought them up in a flat in Borough where she has lived there ever since.
Pat explained that as she was on her own, she always did jobs that fit around the kids. She worked at different nurseries: “The last one was the Rockingham estate. I was also a lolly pop lady on the Rockingham estate for a couple of years – that was lovely. If they hadn’t got rid of that estate I would still be doing it I think.”
She had an accident that meant she, unfortunately, had to stop work, which is when she started volunteering.
She was chair of the nearby Queensborough Community Centre and was part of the Blackfriars Settlement’s befriending scheme that trained volunteers to visit isolated local residents.
“Everyone should volunteer. If you can’t work for whatever reason, get down to your local community centre, church, or soup kitchen and you won’t be able to say no. It’s so fulfilling.”
Pat was diagnosed with lung cancer, so her voluntary work has taken a halt whilst she is in recovery. She mentioned that this has been tough -“I’ve been doing it for 36 years and I loved every minute of it.”
As well as her children, she has eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Turning 80 her family threw her a huge party – making sure to include her favourite activity: bingo.
“Apart from my family, bingo is the love of my life,” she said. “If I won the million-pound lottery, I would stay in the same flat but I’d go to the far end of the country to every bingo hall in the country and play a game.”
Why does she love bingo?
“Women couldn’t go to the pub on their own back then – so they needed places to go to meet people.”
She was a regular at The Palace, the renowned bingo hall in Elephant and Castle which closed when the shopping centre was demolished.
“That was sad,” she said and in recent years, she’s gotten a newfound concern for the older generation. “Since I got cancer, it made me realise even more how hard it is for older people who don’t have good neighbours or family around. I’m lucky in that respect.
“We don’t recognise the place anymore – now it’s all Pret’s and Starbucks and Tesco’s.
“All the gentrification is sad.”
As the area changes, what hasn’t changed, she said, are her three lifelong friends: Liz, Mo and Christine – ‘they’re my rock’. As a special birthday treat, the four are going to see the ‘Jersey Boys’ in a royal box.