Margaret Rouse

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

My full name is Margaret Forbes Rouse, and what else?

Do you know why you were given that name?

Yes, the Forbes is a clan name from Scotland, and the Rouse was originally Rousse from France.

Thank you, could you tell me about your family please?

I have four daughters and one son, my son died last January unfortunately, but I’ve got four daughters left. Uh about 15 grandchildren, about 14 great grandchildren

Wow, that’s a lot. How did you grow up, like where did you grow up?

Well I was born in Scotland and you probably know about Glansbury, because that’s where your mother was born (referencing boy interviewer) so I was born in Glamis as well. But I worked in Banbury, I moved to Banbury and became a flying merchant with the women’s royal air force. Then I moved to St Thomas’ in London, and in the 1950s I moved onto the isle but loved it so much and my husband that we decided to stay there.

Where was you born and did you like it there?

Yes, because I was born in Scotland, and I just told you it was a place called Glans, its only a jump outside Dundee.

Do you have any siblings, like brothers and sisters?

Siblings? Oh you mean my own, I have one brother

Did you visit the Church, and how often did you go to church?

Did I go to the church and how often did I go?

Yeah

When it was open as a church I did, and then they closed it because the credit, it was going to fall down. But it’s a religious building, a heritage building, so I have a right to it, and there was a huge cry from everybody that lived on the island for a long time, that the old buildings are historical, and should be kept. A lot of the island probably don’t know about it. Queenborough is very historical, because Lord Milson lived here.  Bluetown is very historical because it’s a dockyard. The dockyard was a very, very fine industry. It had the big ship liners that came in, and they decided to close all that. The Holland (Olau) came here as well backwards and forwards every day and we had a lot of passengers and a lot of cargo. It was a very good concern, and one day the government decided to close it down.

What did you like about the church?

The atmosphere. Have you been inside?

No it all burned down, there was a fire.

Round all the ways, there’s a list of McCoughan soldiers who died here, either on ships anchored in the medley or the prisoners of the war, and when we first got the plague over, and we had plague victims, they were buried on dead man’s island, which is just off the coast. The church and that, the local church, and many major families have been inside it, and there was an atmosphere of the old way of living and coming of the more modern way of living and praying. because days ago, the priest wrote in Latin, all things were spoken in Latin, and then of course the new bible came out and things began to be spoken in English.

So it became easier for working people to understand because Bluetown, was a famous drinking town and all the sailors came and got drunk, caused havoc and staff in the church would get them to go back up on the road. But they were good days, but we also had very, very hard days. Not enough money, next to nothing, everybody took washing in and ironing in, and bad houses and goodness knows what. Up there, up the road, was a work house, people couldn’t manage to live anymore, they hadn’t the money to live and the elderly were taken in. That’s the benny circle as well, in the dockland, you’ve got the whole of the island, ministers, they had their own hospital. And how can I put it, where there is a Chinese take-away man on the corner, and all the old people used to smoke grey pipes and I’ve got one inside the house, and you get some wonderful books in the library, about old Sheppey, it’s worth getting them, have you all been born on the island?

(all say yes but one) I wasn’t, I was born in Liverpool.

So you see, you come to an island, wherever you come from has got a history, Liverpool has a fantastic history, but this Island is special because it goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, it was originally discovered by Minister of Abbey, first Abbey to ever be created by the Queen, next second oldest one is the cathedral in Canterbury. So you see the amount of history.

I take it that your happy for the renovation that’s going to be carried out?

Yes I am, well you see, the thing is we planned to do things, because of the money problems they found it very difficult to do so, but the church is special and should be definitely looked after. Same as a catholic church, that was built by people themselves and what we call up here that used to be lunch house and that’s the sort of things that needs to be built as well. Wherever you look is history, but you have to look for it. And you have to preserve it because when you don’t, years to come there’ll be nothing to look back to.

History is a wonderful thing, because it tells you about how bad it was in the past and how good it was, how people were so poor that they had to beg just to stay afloat. Now we live in a society where that’s, not as well as we’d like, but at least we’re not hungry and we’re not fools and we’re not barefoot. So you have to be grateful for what we got. But you also have to give back something, instead of taking and not giving back.

What did the church mean to you?

Now you’re asking a very awkward question, because I was born a protestant in Scotland, the high church of Scotland which is next to the catholic church, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday I went to the class so there I was associated with the church and the choir. Then of course when I left and went into the air force, I went to the air force gatherings on a Sunday, the party gathering we called them. Then when I came on back to London, I used to go to the cathedral because I was working at St Thomas’ hospital, so it was near to me. Like everybody else, I don’t say the evening prayer like our grandparents do, I don’t ask God for help much, unless it’s something very, very desperate. You have to learn to stand on your own feet, but you remember whether you believe in a god or not, there is some supreme being that put us all into the world, and that’s very important.

Someone invented and created the world, lots of people call them by different names, as you know there’s a lot of trouble at the moment with Muslims, but they worship a god called Allah, but he’s still the same god as we worship, they’ve got a different name for him.

So you have to be kind to receive kindness, no matter what happens, what you hear, what you see on the television, it’s terrible, it really is terrible. Give kindness and receive it.

So what did you think about the church when it had the fire when it burned?

I’d like to know how it got on fire, dear, lots of people thought it was an accident, and that’s it.. no one knows what caused it

(interviewer) Well what I was told that the guy who owned it, he set a fire in the yard, and then he left it

That’s right, and then you see the timber was so old, hundreds of years old, all the woodwork, it was so dry, it caught fire easily, sparks fly. You see, In those days you didn’t close church doors they were left open, it was very welcoming, it was much missed by everybody.

What do you want the church to be used for?

Would I go back?

What do you want it to be used for

Yes, would you like to go use it. For the use it was made for. For worshipping. Would you use it respectful? Many people would. There are lots of people nowadays who don’t think about religion, they think about stupid things, less than human I call it.

“…because of the money problems they found it very difficult to do so, but the church is special and should be definitely looked after.”

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.