Susan Broadhead

Where were you born?

I was born on the Isle of Sheppey.

Have you lived here all your life?

Forever, so from 1951 to now. So we’re talking, it’s going to be 66 years, in a month.

Do you have any jobs, if so, what are they?

I’m here, I’m a librarian, so I work in here (Sheppey Gateway).

Can you describe what the church looked like?

When I remember it, it was the one before it burnt down, you know. So, in 1968, we had a youth club there. And it was beautiful inside and it was all, there was some blue and gold, I think in there, it was really nice. And sometimes you go in a church and it’s very, very gold, isn’t it, it doesn’t feel nice, but St Paul’s always did, because of the colourings that were in there and the gold and whatever, so it’s very nice.

Are you interested in history of the Dockyard Church?

Yeah, in 1968, between 1968 and 1970, that was a youth club and the vicar, because you used to go to a vicar’s youth club, and it was down, in one of these streets down here, but all of a sudden we couldn’t have it because it was going to be pulled down, it was called the Memorial Hall and he managed to have the church so that we could have a youth club. So, we made it, we kept it all, well the pews had already gone, I think the pews had already gone, but what we did is, because I worked for a potteries that made toilets, I was able to talk to the people that were making them and we had them all put in and wash basins in there because without that we couldn’t have done it, because it was the law to have toilets and sinks. And then we had a youth club in there for quite a few years. Until that all stopped and we had to go somewhere else afterwards. So that’s one of my memories and the other one is, I remember seeing it when it caught fire. That was so sad, so sad because we had a lot of memories there. My mum and dad were married there, because dad worked on the minesweepers, so he was always coming in to dock. He was trawling all around the island to get the mines up and out in the sea, where you can go over to France, all of that, he was clearing all the minesweepers out. So he met my mum, who lived in Beach Street, which is the next road and on the night before they were going to get married, on the Saturday, the vicar knocked on the door, from St Paul’s, because it was a naval church, it wasn’t an ordinary church, it was basically for the navy. And the vicar knocked on the door and said I’m so sorry, because in Beach Street, there’s houses that laid back with gardens, do you see them down there? Yeah, just down that first road, if you go along here and turn to walk up to the beach. Well they were allowed to be married, but on this side, it formed the first bit of being in Sheerness and not in Blue Town, so he said that he would contact the Archbishop of Canterbury to see if he could get permission. Because of dad’s work and what he was doing, the Archbishop allowed it, so they did get married in there.

Can you describe what the interior looked like?

It’s been a long, long time, but it’s what I call a warm, beautiful church and I think it was due to, I seem to think, it was like it was blue. I don’t know, it had a beautiful stained glass window, I remember that, it was just so elegant. It had huge pillars, the pillars were huge, you know and I think it was, I can’t be 100 per cent, but I remember it being such a warm place to be and not like ice cold, you know like other churches, you walk in and you go ‘ergh’, but it wasn’t and it must have been for the decoration or maybe there were paintings inside there, I don’t know. And I can’t even remember if it had stained glass now, I can’t remember. Yeah, it was lovely.

Do you have photos of the Church and if so, how many?

I hope I’ve got one here, I’ve been looking, because mum and dad were married and I’ve been sort of sending these to my boys. Right, let me go down. Yes, that’s what we called ourselves, ‘Swampies’ it was all swamp and marsh, it was just marsh.

You can kind of see that, when you come of the bridge, very rural ish.

Yeah and that’s where I live, where they come over the bridge, I’m only just round where the houses start, which, it’s nice, it’s lovely. Yeah, we’ve always been Swampies and we only had, we had a very, very basic bridge then and when the war, I have, I should have brought that, I’ve got a passport when I was born, like this. It was an identity card and they were given out, I was born in 1951, so they were still doing this security thing, whatever, because it was so important, the docks were started, it was an army camp, wasn’t it before, it was army and it was a very important place and that’s why that king decided we’re going to do this royal dockyard, so that is why we had the I.D. I think.

Do you mind if I ask you why you became Secretary in the youth club?

Because I was a short hand typist and I’d got my exams. I’ve moved and I’ve got boxes galore and I’m sure, because I’ve picked some stuff up thinking, my God Sue, why have you kept that so long. We just did, it was just, because the vicar had loads to do.

Was it your first choice of place to work?

Oh I didn’t work, well I worked at the potteries. I think if you don’t live on the island, it’s hard for you to imagine, but think of this island as a little bit of land sitting with water all around it and there’s the swell where the bridge is and you’ve got across here, and then it goes around again through to Harty, so there was somebody else who came in and they were asking questions and I said but we were a community, and we’re losing it now because KCC are now bringing in people from up the country and especially Gravesend, Dartford, London boroughs they come now. The council have now been told they’ve got to build more houses for them and we’re now going to have 145 coming behind mine, which you know when you come on to the island, and you’re faced with that hill, I live just at the bottom of that hill. But now they’re going to put 145 at the back of that and he’s going to have 600 houses built and take his land and put another 200 and we’re just losing our identity. We actually got a little bit of twang to our voices, or we did, all of us did, but mine’s disappeared but we were known for that. We were thoroughly, thoroughly communities, everybody. I even remember my mum, she helped out somebody two doors down, we all did that, and it’s gone, it’s so sad. So I’m glad that everything like this is being recorded as well, it will be brilliant.

Should we keep the Church, if so, why?

I think it’s absolutely good to be done and somebody is fighting for some of our heritage to come back. I think it is, you know, they could know who we were, you know, we struggled and we had floods in 1953 that just poured all over the island, so everybody sort of sticks together.

Do you know how the Church burnt down?

I don’t know how the Church burnt down, only by newspapers, but I can’t remember that now. All I remember, because we bought a public house and it’s in St George’s Avenue, and it overlooked the fields and we could see the Church burning down, but it was so sad. I just stood there and thought, all the memories, you know, and didn’t know whether it could be brought back into life.

“It had a beautiful stained glass window, I remember that, it was just so elegant.”

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.