News
Update: Tributes left to tragic mum Natasha
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Natasha Mullings
A TRAGIC mum who died in a flat fire could have a building named after her at the nursery where she touched so many lives.
Tributes to Natasha Mullings, 35, who died in a fire at her home early on Saturday morning, have poured in since we reported the news of her death on Tuesday.
Natasha worked at Ethelred Nursery School in Kennington for 15 years and had been out celebrating its outstanding Ofsted report just hours before she died.
Parents, colleagues and former kids at the nursery have inundated the South London Press with messages of love and respect for the mum-of-one.
Glenda King, headteacher at the nursery, said: “She brought light and life into everything she did and the response from parents, children and staff has been overwhelming.
“She was excellent at her job and her love of children just shone through.
“I’m not just saying these words, this is actually from the heart and we have been absolutely torn apart by her death.
“She was irreplaceable. But what’s carrying us through is that everywhere we look at Ethelred we see something she did.
“We’ve got children from 15 years ago still coming in to pay their respects.
“There has been a constant stream of people deeply shocked at what’s happened.”
Staff at the nursery have been so affected by the early years’ educator’s death they have called in counsellors from Lambeth council.
Some could not bear to work on Monday and had to go home.
The pupils have been told about Natasha’s death and on Monday they all sang some of her favourite songs.
Staff came into school on the Sunday after her death to set up a display in her memory and it will be closed on the day of her funeral.
Natasha was killed in the early hours of Saturday morning when a fire ripped through her second-floor flat in Croxted Road, Dulwich.
Her 15-year-old daughter was rescued just minutes earlier.
Mrs King said: “I still can’t believe it but we know that Natasha was really, really happy in her personal and professional life.
“She had a lovely daughter, Shanice, who has now been left without a mother but she will always have an excellent role model.
“We all loved her mum and this place won’t be the same without her.
“We were her second family.”
Natasha was halfway through a teaching qualification when she died.
The school now hopes to name a new building after her.
Natasha’s parents, Louis and Carmen Mullings, ran the New Queen’s Head pub in Stockwell Road, Brixton, for some years.
The fire brigade is still investigating the cause of the fire but it is not being treated as suspicious.
Email: jenny.clover@slp.co.uk
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