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 Elizabeth 'Lil' Price |
Poetry-loving ‘ambassador’
ELIZABETH‘Lil’ Price, who died earlier this month aged 76, was a well-known and much-loved figure in Camden Town. Through her work with Irish people in the area, she became an unofficial ambassador for her former home of Wicklow in Ireland.
Lil married her childhood sweetheart Ned, who had followed her to Camden Town from their native Ireland in the early 1950s.
Each county has an Irish association at Camden Irish Centre, and Lil broke decades of tradition by becoming the first woman to chair the Wicklow Association.
The association was formed to help people from the county meet each other and socialise, and to provide assistance for those who had fallen on hard times.
Her daughters Bernadette and Yvonne, speaking at the family home in Albert Street, remember their mother’s work.
“She could not leave the house without meeting people she knew,” said Yvonne. “A trip to the shops would take her hours.”
Visitors were alway welcome at the family home. Ned and Lil took part in the annual Albert Street party, with Ned entertaining neighbours on the accordion.
As well as raising a family of three, Lil went out to work. She got a job at the Buxton Club, a West End haunt of celebrities, and befriended some of the big names of British showbusiness in the 1960s and 70s.
These included comedians Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker, and she also counted actors Peter O’Toole, John Hurt, Kim Novak and Diana Dors among her friends.
A poetry lover, she could recite lines from memory. She was a keen historian – her father and grandfather worked as guides to the Wicklow area and their stories of her home county had been part of her upbringing.
She used them when promoting the county in London, and was proud to be called a daughter of the Garden of Ireland and fond of reciting poems written about the county.
Ned ran one of Camden Town’s most successful building companies and used the couple’s success to help others.
Although it was never spoken about, many local people who fell on hard times were helped out discreetly by the generous couple.
Such was their standing in the community that pensioners would line up outside their home at Christmas, knowing the family would cook extra dinners to distribute to them.
Lil learned two years ago that she was suffering from a terminal illness, but did not want anyone except members of her immediate family to know.
Her daughters said she wanted to enjoy each day she had left. This included a trip to New York for last year’s St Patrick’s Day Parade.
She was laid to rest alongside her husband Ned, who died in 2002, at St Kevin’s Church in their home town of Laragh.
DAN CARRIER
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