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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 117669" data-attributes="member: 22">1975     Dot Cotton, speaking in 2007: I’ll have you know, I’ve been keeping the garments of Albert Square clean for over thirty years.Pauline Fowler, speaking in 2003: How many years have you worked [at the launderette], Dot?Dot: Twenty-eight, on and off. Advert in the window said "Temporary vacancy."Dot: I’ve worked hard all me life. Well, there’s nothing else for it.Dot: I’ve never skived off work, not for a day.Dot: I’ve had an overflowing plate all me life. Every woman has.Dot: I have never taken a perk in me life.Rose Cotton: I worked in a surgery.Cora Cross on her daughter Tanya: To think I went through the pain of childbirth for this.Cora on bringing up a baby: Too much angst nowadays. Get on with it — that’s what we used to have to do.Tanya Branning to Cora: You think I’m stubborn? You think I’m self-centred? Well, guess what, Mum, I learnt from the best.Cora on Tanya: We never did know where she got her gob from.Cora on Tanya: Her dad was a sulker. Always got to have one sulker in the house.Billy Mitchell on his son: Was he all right — I mean, healthy, no problems?Julie Perkins: He was perfect.Julie to her son: I held you for ages when you were born. I know it’s not much, it’s nothing really, but this midwife said that being born was really stressful for babies so I just kept it peaceful, I couldn’t really do anything else, so I just held you very, very still.Julie on her son: The day I gave him up I said to myself, “This is your life now."Julie: I got to feed him a couple of times and then a week after he was born, he was gone. They took him away.Billy: Into care.Julie: No, into a family, a good family. They promised me that.Billy: He could have been with us.Julie: A couple of care home kids — what start in life is that?Billy: Better than we had. We could have been a family. Me, you and our little boy, it would have been brilliant.Julie: He got better than us, Billy. He got a family — nice people with jobs and all of that.Henry Mason on Julie: Best thing she could have done, giving it up. I mean, it’s not as if she had a lot to offer anybody, is it?Julie: I wasn’t fit to be a mum then.Lola Pearce, Julie’s biological granddaughter: You’re a selfish, selfish cow. That’s why you got rid of my dad.Julie: They said he went to a nice family. They all said it was for the best.Julie on her son Dan: He went to a good home, didn’t he, when he was adopted?Paul Leese, Dan’s friend: That didn’t really work out too well.Julie: I gave him nothing. Nothing. I’ve never been there for him.Billy: My son, he never knew his dad and I never knew he existed.Julie, speaking about granddaughter Lola in 2011: She reminds me so much of me years ago and I’ve just been blotting that out all my life and running away from it.Tanya Branning: Did Dad ever know [about the baby you gave up for adoption]?Cora: No-one ever knew. It was my secret. I never forgot her. I never ever stopped thinking of her.Dr Legg to Mark Fowler: The last time I was called out to see you was when you fell out of a tree. You were seven years old.Mark: You should have seen me [as a seven year old]. Always bumping into things. Black and blue, I was.Phil: The park I used to play in as a kid, there's this great big beech tree there. Me and Grant used to climb it, see who could get to the top first. He justused to go at it. Always falling out of that tree he was. Me, I took it slowly, just one hand at a time.Sonia Jackson: And who got to the top first?Phil: Who do you think?Derek Branning: I’m not very good with heights. Had a fall once. Nearly broke me neck.Den Watts to Sharon: Brickley Woods, the old railway tunnel. Your mum and I used to take you down there when you was a kid.Sharon on Phil and Grant: Their dad would kick off and that's where they'd go, Brickley Woods. No-one could touch them.Ronnie Mitchell on Eric: I heard what he put you through, you and Phil. My mum told us.Peggy: He was OK.Ronnie: He hit you.Peggy: He hit a lot of people.Glenda Mitchell to Peggy: You stuck it out — martyr extraordinaire. You stuck it out because you were too stupid to leave. No matter how bad it got, you stuck it out, even when Eric got tired of using you as a punchbag and turned on your boys instead.Samantha “Sam” Mitchell, Peggy’s daughter: Why did you stay?Peggy: I had my reasons. I wouldn't have had any money. I'd have had nowhere to live.Sam: So you just put up with it, did you?Peggy: I was pregnant. It stopped when you came long.Ronnie to Peggy: There was my mum telling us you were an idiot. You can blame my dad for that. He’d all but destroyed her by then.Peggy to Glenda: You didn’t think much of me if my memory serves. What was it you used to call me? Oh yeah - Tweety Pie. Always swanning around like you were something special. Thought you were a cut above the rest of us. Old head on young shoulders.Glenda: If you must know, I was jealous of you. Oh, I knew that you and Eric had your problems, but you were so stoic, Peggy. You went through it, you were so strong for your children, everybody loved you, but every moment that I was married to Archie, I felt that I was losing more and more of myself, and I always took second place to the girls.Peggy: That’s what happens when you have kids. You put them first.Glenda: I know you did and you made it look effortless. I so envied you for that. I know that Archie was impressed and why wouldn’t he be? You were the perfect wife, the perfect mother.Sam: My date of birth is the thirteenth of the fifth, 1975.Peggy: Sam came along and from the absolute instant I put her in his arms, he was my Eric again. He was the man I married. Those last years were the best we ever had.Peggy: My Sam, she was a difficult birth and I had a rough patch after.Sam: You must have thanked your lucky stars when I popped out — a little girl, all sugar and spice and all things nice.Peggy: Well, it's nice to have a girl after two boys. Every mum wants that.Sam: Especially after those two, right handfuls like Phil and Grant — and then there was Dad, hardly a shrinking violet himself, was he? A bit intimidating, wasn't it? All those male hormones rushing round must have made you feel like you weren't quite in control anymore.Peggy: I've never been intimidated in my life.Sam: Oh Mum, come on. Dad did more than intimidate you, quite a few times as I remember.Peggy: Yeah and I could always give as good as I got.Peggy to Sam: When you were born, I swore I wouldn't let you have a life like mine.Peggy to Sam: You were six weeks old when you had your first haircut.Peggy: Eric used to knock my boys around. Then one day after years of it, he hit Phil and I let him, and he hit Grant and I stood by and watched that too, and then he looked at me and do you know what I did? I picked up a kitchen knife and pointed the tip right at his heart and said to him if he ever laid a finger on my kids again or looked at me like that, I'd kill him, stab him in his sleep if that's what it took to stop him, and I meant it. And do you know what? He never did it again.Sam, shortly after giving birth in 2010: Did I sleep for long?Peggy: Nearly four hours that stretch. More than I used to get with any of you lot.Peggy to Sam: You should have heard the noise you made when you was a baby.Eddie Moon on his son: Michael didn’t sleep through till he was about three.Kat: Bit of a handful, was he?Peggy: You should have seen my ankles when I had Sam.Ethel Skinner: You remember my gallstones — that was pain.Dot: Ethel and me, we always wanted to go to the Ritz. Of course they wouldn’t have let us in, not with her Willy.Ethel: My William had the mange.Lou Beale: It's a wonder your husband didn't get something worse, the way he got around.Ethel: It was the dog that had the mange.Dean Wicks: Did you ever think of having an actual career?Andrew “Buster” Briggs: I did once, down Billingsgate with your granddad. I was only a little ’un. Blimey, did I love that place.Buster: I had a friend called Russell Sprout once.Stan Carter: You never did. You’re making it up.Buster: No, I did. Went into politics. Joined the Greens Party.Stan to Buster: You always were a comedian. You were trouble.Shirley Carter: I met Buster when he first started working at Billingsgate with Dad. Little bit older than me, good looking, nothing complicated. One of three blokes that ever really meant anything to me. He was a laugh.Nancy Carter on Shirley: Wow, must have been back when she used to smile!Minty: I can’t imagine Shirley as a teenager. I bet she was into Rod Stewart.Dean to Buster: You’re just some grubby biker she [Shirley] picked up.Shirley on Buster: He used to do wheelies up and down the street and share his chips with me. Sylvie Carter: Didn’t take much, did it?Shirley: And then we started hanging around together and then doing stuff. Sylvie: Little tart.Phil: You and him …?Shirley: First time for everything, isn’t there?Sylvie to Shirley: You’ve never been a looker, have you? Still, the fellas weren’t really after your face, were they?Buster to Babe: I’m fourteen years old and you’re chucking me out the house.Kevin Wicks: I left school without a single A Level to my name.Rod Norman on Nick Cotton: I was at school with him.Dot: I always hoped that my Nick would end up in one of them polytechnics. He was ever so gifted with his hands.Dot on Nick: He always was clever, even at school — when he wasn't spoiling himself, getting himself into trouble. I tried and tried to get him to stay on at school.Derek Branning: Dropping out of school — well, we all did that.Dot: ”Nick," I used to say, "just be a little discriminating. Remember at all times that you come from a good home and don't let yourself be tempted by low types."Barry Clark on Nick: I've known him since I was a kid, ever since he was me brother's best mate.Pauline: Nick and Graham Clark, Barry's older brother, they used to hang about together.Charlie Cotton Jr, Nick’s son, to Ian: Were you one of my dad’s mates?Sharon: Well, we kind of grew up together. I mean, your dad was a bit older than us, but …Nick Cotton: I just remembered that time I took you thieving in that tobacconists.Mark: That was terrible! I was only about seven.Nick: The only reason I took you along was because you were little enough to crawl in through that backwindow.Mark: Yeah, that's right. It was fags for you, toffees for me. It's burnt into my memory, I can tell you.Nick: And what did you do? You only stuffed a whole jar of toffees up your jumper.Mark: Yeah I got stuck in the window coming out, didn't I?Nick: The copper couldn't keep a straight face when he found you.Mark: Yeah well, my mum didn't laugh when she found out about it when he took me home.Nick: Well that was your own fault, wasn't it? You should have been a better liar. Your trouble is you could never sweet talk your way out of a paper bag.Mark: No, I reckon I told my share of porkies in my time. I finally just twigged that what happened when I got found out was far worse than what would have happened if I told my mum about it in the first place.Dot on Nick: I brought up a liar. I brought up a liar and a thief. I know what deceit sounds like.Dot: My Nick used to say he was sorry. I can see him standing there, wide-eyed. “Sorry, Ma,” he’d say. “I’ve learned me lesson this time.” And every time, every single time, I believed him.Dot: [“He’s just a child.”] That’s what I used to say about my Nick and I was wrong. I should never have listened to him all them years ago.Yolande Trueman: So why did you listen to your Nick?Dot: Because I was a fool.Yolande: Because you wouldn’t have been able to live with yourself if you hadn’t.Dot: Much good it did me.Dot to Abi Branning: When my Nick was your age [sixteen] and courting a different girl every week, he bought none of them flowers. Dot: How did you meet Nick?Yvonne Cotton, Nick’s wife: He was fresh out of borstal and me, well, I was too daft to know any better.Nick: I remember you and me getting drunk on cider after I come out of borstal. Yvonne: I wasn’t drunk.Nick: The only way to get into a good girl’s knickers.Yvonne: Only way to make a bad boy bearable.Nick on Yvonne: I was in a bad space when I met her.Yvonne on Nick: He might have had his demons, but deep down there was something good.Derek Branning: I did a flit from a borstal once. Didn’t mean to. It wasn’t a bad gaff. I was bunging one of the night staff so I could slip out and see this little sort in the village — vicar’s daughter. Lovely she was, very forthcoming. First time I’d ever seen a duvet. Anyway, one night, me and the rev’s pride and joy, we decided to hit the altar wine. I overslept. Woke up in the morning with the vicar screaming at me and his wife hitting me with a dust buster. I grabbed her handbag and done a runner. Got caught trying to board a ferry. Never been lucky for me, Dover. After two weeks of living rough, I was glad to get caught. It’s lonely out there on your own.Charlie Cotton Jr on his parents: She was a nurse. They got married when they found out I was on the way.Shirley Carter: So why hasn’t Dot ever met you?Yvonne: Well, they [Dot and Nick] had had a falling out apparently. He said it was something to do with a family allowance book.Dot: I’d have baked your wedding cake.Yvonne: Never really went in for fruitcakes. We didn’t have a cake at all at ours.Dot: I wish you had. I wish I’d been there.Liz Turner: June meant the summer holidays were just around the corner. Had a sister-in-law in Southend. Every year without fail we took Owen to the coast.Pat: Every summer, I used to take my David and Simon down to the coast.Nana Moon to Alfie: Remember how you used to love a bucket and spade when you was a little boy?Alfie Moon: Whenever we went to Margate as kids, we was always sick in the back of the bus. So me nan got us to play Snap and it always calmed our nerves. We were so dead set on winning, we was always forgetting to throw up.Heather Trott: I nearly drowned in Margate. I was trying to rescue me mum’s flip flops from the sea and all these massive waves came over me. I was only seven at the time.Alfie on his grandmother's silverfish pendant: Nana, you lost it, remember? It was at the seaside. We spent all day looking for it and the sea came in and ...Nana Moon: And it washed it all away.Alfie: That's right, and you said ...Nana Moon: "It's all right now, because it can play with its little friends." Crying your eyes out, you were — little Alfie.Alfie: Me Aunt Hilda's caravan in Southend.Kat Slater: That place where you used to stay as a kid? You said it was miles away from the toilet block.Alfie: Millions of miles, and you can forget about any hot water.Kevin Wicks on a caravan holiday: I remember running to the toilet block in the middle of the night. You’d go in there with your torch and there’d be all this scurrying — all the creepy crawlies running around!Alfie to Kat: You remember when you was a kid, right, and you'd go down to Southend Pier, and you'd see that little old couple sitting on the bench and he'd be wearing a brown trilby hat and she'd be wearing fluffy boots with zips up the front and they'd be eating fish and chips out of old newspaper, and they'd been married for hundreds of years and they're still holding hands?Shirley on herself and Buster: We had a laugh until I found out he’d got me into trouble. Shirley: I thought I was putting on weight — my clothes, they were getting too tight — and then she [Sylvie] barged in my bedroom while I was getting dressed and saw my tummy. I was four months gone and I didn’t even know. And then she just come at me and started slapping me round the face and screaming at me and shaking me and I didn’t know what was going on. Sylvie: You knew. You did it on purpose. Shirley: Why would I? I didn’t know anything because you told me nothing [about the facts of life]. Shirley: I found out I was pregnant. I was fourteen. I was so scared and I was told that it was best if I didn’t tell anyone. Phil: You didn’t ever think about, you know, getting rid?Shirley: Well of course I did, but I was just a kid. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was the seventies, nobody did. By the time I got head round it, Mum has cottoned on and Dad, after his old man died, he wasn’t out of the pub long enough to notice.Phil: For nine months? Are you telling me he never knew?Shirley: Mum come up with a bright idea, this cock and bull story that they needed some time apart — I don’t know, I never asked. Stan Carter to Shirley: Why didn’t you tell me [about the pregnancy]? Babe: Because she knew if you found out, you’d chuck her out. That’s what Sylvie told her and she was right, you would have. Stan: I wouldn’t have thrown you out.Shirley: Yes, you would.Stan: You were my Shirley Temple.Sylvie: Shirley Temple? Look at him, acting the innocent. I could tell you plenty about him.Sylvie on Shirley: The staircase outside the flats, she threw herself down them. Tried to murder [her son] before he were born.Stan: Hang on, that was an accident.Sylvie: Some accident!Stan to Shirley: Why would you do that?Babe to Stan: Because of you. She was frightened. She was just a kid. Sylvie to Stan: You made our daughter so scared, she threw herself down the stairs.Shirley: I didn’t throw myself.Tina to Sylvie: You pushed her?Sylvie: Of course not!Babe: I knew about the stairs, after it had happened.  If I’d known, I’d have stopped [Sylvie]. I would, Shirley. You know that.Shirley to her son Mick: When it didn’t work, I knew you were a fighter, Mick, and that’s when I realised that I wanted to keep you but they wouldn’t let me.Babe: I only did what I thought was best. Babe: Sylvie and Stan, they had problems. Stan to Babe: We were all right on our own and then you came with your meddling and spreading poison. You tried to split us up so you could have me — as if I’d be interested in an old crone like you.Babe: I was trying to help save your marriage. Stan: Only person you tried to help was yourself.Babe: Sylvie wanted to keep hold of [Stan] so we — yes, it was partly my idea — we had this idea that she could pass the baby off as hers.Shirley: And I said no. I didn’t want that.Sylvie: To spite me.Shirley: When I started to show, they took me to Ramsgate. Tina to Stan: What, and you never knew?Stan: We’d had a row. Can’t remember what it was now, but it must have been a big ’un. [Sylvie] took off with you and Shirl. Went to stay with your Aunt Babe in Ramsgate. Stan to Sylvie: Said you’d be a week, but it took months.Mick: Why didn’t you go after her [Sylvie]?Stan: I had work. I wasn’t going to go begging. Anyway, she was always taking off. All right, I was pigheaded, but I’m the one that’s missed out.Babe to Stan: State you were in, I’m surprised you even noticed we were gone.Shirley: We ended up in some grotty little caravan site in the middle of nowhere with Aunt Babe and a chemical toilet and I swear it rained every single miserable day.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?