Jane Morphey

What is your full name and do you know why you were given this name?

My name is Mrs Jane Morphey and obviously before I was married, I was Miss Jane O’Leary, I don’t know why they choose the name Jane, I just think my parents liked the name, so I assume that’s the reason why.

Where were you born?

I was born in Lewisham, and then at the age of seven I moved to the island with my mum and my two sisters.

What do you do for a living?

I work at the Academy and I do the timetable, so all the timetables that you receive every so often when you have your mentoring, I’m the person which puts the timetable together.

Could you tell me a bit about your family please?

Okay, um I’m married and I have three children, Ross, Sam and Lisa. Ross is 34 and he is a quality surveyor, and he works off the island usually around Ashford sometimes up in London and he’s got a house in Minster and he’s got little girl called Evie, my granddaughter. Sam is my middle son who you all know, and he is the head of Brampton on the west side , he lives in Minster and he’s getting married next year, okay? And his girlfriend’s name is Sarah and she’s a teacher. Okay, I also have a daughter, Lisa, and she lives in minster she has her own house and she’s a manager for new look in Chatham she also works up in London in the head office as well, Lisa is 29 and Sam is 30, and I think Ross I said is 34.

Where were you born and did you like it there?

I was born in Lewisham and to be honest I can’t really remember much about it because I moved to the island, well I moved to Chelmsford when I was two years old so from the age of 2 to 7 I lived in Chelmsford in Essex and I can remember a little bit more about there than the place I was actually born. Do you want me to tell you a little bit about Chelmsford in Essex where I grew up?

Yes please

Okay, it was quite a modern building house, okay? Obviously, I lived there with my mum and dad and at the time, I only had one sister and then during the time we were there my other sister Anne was born and I don’t know if you know my sister Anne, Anne Wiles she’s the attendance officer here. It was a nice house with a lovely garden, my dad worked in the city, I used to go horse riding as a child, I used to enjoy that, used to do all time dancing in the village hall, and then as I say when I got to the age of 7 we moved to the island.

How long did you live in Sheppey?

Well I’ve lived in Sheppey since I was 7 so that is about 49 years.

Do you know anything about the Sheerness dockyard church?

I don’t know a great deal about the dockyard, but obviously I know where it is and I used to have a friend that lived in Naval Terrace, so I used to go to my friend’s house who lived at Naval Terrace and that was the building a little bit further along to where she lived and obviously at that point in time I was probably about 13, it was the local youth club.

Wow, there was a youth club?

Yeah, so I think you’ve got a youth club in Sheerness, haven’t you? Well when I was your age, the youth club was down there.

Do you have any siblings?

Yes I got two sisters, okay, one called Sarah and one called Anne.

Did you visit the church and how often did you go?

Well, when I was a teenager I used to go there once a week on a Friday evening because as I said to you it was the local youth club, and probably much like the youth club that you go to, you pay a small entrance fee. It was probably something like 10 pence then and they would have a little tuck shop, somebody like a DJ would be playing music and you could go and request music and you could dance or you could sit and chat with your friends, it was a good place to meet other people.

Do you recall any of the fire that took place in the church?

Any of the…?

Fires that took place

Not really, well I remember reading them in the newspaper and I think at the time probably one of my relatives who used to live in Naval Terrace, she was there at the time of the fires and I think you’re going to be interviewing Craig a bit later? Okay because I’m related to Craig, okay so his nan which used to live in Naval Terrace as well. But I remember reading about it in the newspaper but I don’t remember much more about it.

What did the church mean to you?

Well for me, it was a meeting place where I could see my friends, where we could catch up and chat. It was a very popular youth club as well, a lot of the children on the island that were my age, it was the only youth club, that’s where we all used to go. So yeah, it was very popular.

What was your own favourite piece about the church?

It was a very interesting building and bearing in mind it was a youth club, it still very much looked like a church, so you’d go in through the doors and there would be one area which I guess, originally would be pews but there were like little bits off the side as well, whilst it was a youth club it still looked very much like a church inside.

How do you feel about the church being rebuilt?

Well I think it’s a good thing, well, it’s a lovely building and it’ll be nice to see it restored and used again.

And what do you think they should use the church for when its rebuilt?

It’d be nice to see that everybody could use it, so they could use it for hiring out, for meetings, you know, meetings and things and maybe the local council could use it, maybe they could open it up to some of the older people, you know so they could have some of their little get together sessions, yeah a social area, yeah. They need to open it up for everybody. I don’t know it’ll ever be used for a youth club again because I know there’s another youth club in the town now but, obviously you’ve got to protect it. But it’d be nice, you could do a lot with it.

What would you want the church to be used for?

Well as I said I think it could be useful for a lot of things, you could use it for some of the older people because they like to get together and make, have meetings where they have tea and they can chat, so they could use it for that sort of thing, they could hold events in there, like we could hold some craft fairs things like that, couldn’t they? I think there’s lots of opportunities to use it.

“…it was a meeting place where I could see my friends, where we could catch up and chat. It was a very popular youth club as well, a lot of the children on the island that were my age, it was the only youth club, that’s where we all used to go. ”

If you have your own memories of the dockyard church – as a church, a social club or as it is now, we’d love to hear from you. We're also keen to build an image archive by making copies of photographs and memorabilia of the church.

If you’d like to contribute memories or images to the archive, please tell us a bit more about what you have using the form.