The Sunderland woman who learned to read and write with the Echo

Ellender Parker may well have been the most passionate follower of the Sunderland Echo in history.

She read the paper for almost 90 years and even credited the Echo for learning to read and write.

Today, her son Tom paid tribute to his 'dogged and stoic' mum who was born profoundly deaf but never gave in to her limitations.

She read the paper religiously from the age of 6

Ellender featured in a recent Echo video tribute to Sunderland's older generation and their achievements.

Tom spotted the article and got in touch to tell us more about his mam who 'passed away in 2018 after spending a few years in residential care, but read “The Echo” religiously, crediting it with her learning to read and write from age 6'.

Ellender was born profoundly deaf but did not have 'the benefit of any specialist or even aligned schooling', said Tom.

Stoic Ellender taught herself to lip read

"She taught herself to lip read and converse with her peers in a school environment in which she was basically destined to sink or swim. She did the latter, and whilst she spoke “normally” all of her life it was always on the loud side as she could never hear herself speaking.

"She had no hearing at all in one ear so a hearing aid was of no use as there was no hearing to enhance, and had only very slight hearing in the other, which a hearing aid was a slight benefit for."

She didn't want others to see her pain

"She spent some of the war years working in a munitions factory in Coventry before meeting my Dad, a Royal Naval CPO, with whom she raised a family," said Tom.

He recalled the time when his mum's courage and character shone through despite being in pain.

"I well remember that her GP was instrumental in her obtaining a Blue disabled parking badge in her later years to enable her family to park closer to hospitals."

Ellender, by then, was 'so slow on her feet that by the time we would get to reception, we would often have missed her appointment time.

The time came when the Blue Badge had to be renewed by Ellender 'was so determined not to display weakness and discomfort in performing the required assessment, that the assessor told her that she no longer appeared to need this facility, and promptly withdrew it.

'Fiercely independent to the last'

"Afterwards she told us “Well I wasn’t going to let them see that I was in pain!”

"That was mam all over. She never gave in and never betrayed outwardly her physical limitations, even if they were an issue to her.  

"Fiercely independent to the last,  she passed on her dogged and stoic approach to life to her children."

Ellender worked for many years at Simpsons bakery on Durham Road, for a while at the Pyrex glass factory, and also at Prides bakery.

Is their a relative in your family who overcame the odds to achieve great things? Or someone who devotedly followed the Echo all their lives?

Email [email protected] to tell us more.