My grandmother, Doris Jacobs, who has died aged 108, spent most of her life looking after others, as a sister and daughter, and as a devoted mother and grandmother.
Doris was born and bred in Peckham, south London, daughter of Albert Kerslake, a fishmonger, and his wife, Sarah. She attended Oliver Goldsmith primary school and then Peckham high school, but left at the age of 14 when her mother died, to support her father and look after her four brothers.
She married Harry Jacobs in 1936, and they went on to have three children, Celia, David and Myra (my mother). During the second world war, Doris, Celia and David were evacuated to Mansfield, while Harry served in the forces. They then moved back to Peckham to their family home. Harry ran a fresh fish shop in Choumert Road, Peckham Rye, called Lew Jacobs, which had been started by his father. Doris regularly helped out in the shop while raising the children.
When Harry died in 1983, she moved to north Dulwich, where I would go and stay with her regularly. As the youngest grandchild, I loved to get my own time with Nan. She would take the cushions off the sofa and lay them next to her single bed so we were sleeping in the same room and she would take me to Allders department store in Croydon for tea and cake. She was a loving, caring soul, although never soppy. We always knew we were loved thanks to a little squeeze of the hand or a cheeky smile. She had a sarcastic sense of humour: she asked me if she could have my ripped jeans when I had finished with them – at the age of 108.
My Nan loved playing cards and drinking the odd glass of Bristol Cream sherry. I would visit every weekend and play a couple of hours of rummy with her, always careful not to take long to play a move, or to shuffle the cards for too long. “Come on,” she would say, “or you’ll take the spots off them.” My mother would visit every day for an hour or so, and they enjoyed playing cards and looking through family photographs. Despite her age, she was not fazed by technology and happily talked to my brothers in the US and Australia via Skype.
Doris is survived by Celia and Myra, as well as six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
