At some time during the 1860's the McKay family moved from Sunderland (Roker) to London (Deptford) because there was more work in Deptford for a ships's carpenter than in the North of England.

Their home was close to the River Thames and the children would spend a lot of time playing on the shore. Their favourite part was privately owned and they had to ask permission of the gate keeper to enter. My grandmother and her twin brother and sister - James and Mary Ann (Polly) - were much of an age and so spent a lot of time together. Emily and James - like the McKay side of the family - were red haired and blue eyed but Polly was like her mother - dark haired and brown eyed.

The gate keeper would tease Polly until she cried, telling her she could not possibly be a McKay with hair the colour of hers!

One day the children found a battered bucket on the shore and filled it with winkles they gathered from the stones as a surprise for their mother, the next day being Sunday and they always had winkles and brown bread and butter for Sunday tea. They took the bucket home and hid it until the next day in the girls bedroom. In the morning they woke to find the walls and ceiling covered with crawling winkles!

 

When Emily Howard left school she wanted to work and so went as 'home help' to two maiden ladies in their house in Deptford - she lasted there 2 weeks!

Emily was never house trained and, being a bright, intelligent girl who wrote and read well, she kicked at being told what to do by two women whom she thought stupid! So, her Mother and Father collected her and brought her home where she stayed until her marriage.

Emily Howard McKay married William Stephen Fitch in 1884 at St Nicholas Church, Deptford, London.

William (Bill), my grandfather, told me on many occasions that my grandmother looked lovely on her wedding day dressed in brown brocade, which complemented her titian hair. They spent their lives together and had 9 children, but it was not an ideally happy marriage. Emily was a strong character and William weak and easily led but they jogged along through the years.

After their eldest son, Stephen, died in 1903 from TB, Emily and William moved from Deptford to Chatham (128 Castle Road) in Kent where William worked as a skilled labourer in Chatham Dockyard. They did not enjoy living in Chatham and soon moved to Corporation Road, then Shakespear Road in Gillingham. In 1905 they moved to 61 Byron Road Gillingham and stayed there until their deaths.

My mother, Winifred Maria Burrage, nee Fitch, used to recall bath nights at Byron Road. A zinc bath would be put in front of the range in the middle room and the five younger children - James, Winnie, Rose, Billy and Freddie would be seated along the side of the room. Freddie would be bathed first as he was the youngest and the cleanest, followed by the girls and Jim. Billy was always last because he was the dirtiest!

Between each child, a kettle of hot water from the range would be added to the bath water.

As each child was rubbed dry they were dressed in a red night-shirt and seated on the other side of the room where they were given half an orange. While all this went on their father played his concertina in the corner.

By the 1914-18 War, 61 Byron Road had become a house of teenagers and young people. Emily Howard - the youngest- had married Joseph Connick, an Irish soldier. Mary Anne was in service with a family called Penny and was living in their home on the Isle Of Sheppey. She was courting Arthur Burrows who was a Baker's Roundsman on Sheppey and not eligible for military service as he had a 'weak chest'. Charlotte was nursing, so only the younger five children were living at home.

James was training as an Ordnance Artificer in the Royal Navy and was stationed at Chatham. Winnie and Victoria Rose had Office jobs with Featherstones in Chatham. Rose later moved to an office at Southill Barracks, Chatham. Billy was an apprentice Coppersmith at Chatham Dockyard and Freddie was an electrical Apprentice.

One Sunday afternoon during the Great War, a large Airship - a German Zeppelin - was sighted hovering over Byron Road. The Fitch Family with their neighbours, gathered at their front doors to view this unusual thing, quite unaware of the danger they were in. Without warning, a bomb was released from the Zeppelein making a direct hit on Moakes Bakery in Canterbury Street, opposite the Byron Road turning. The blast from the bomb travelled along Byron Road and the Fitch family were blown off their feet into the front hallway of 61 in a great heap of arms and legs. Fortunately no-one was hurt, but dignity was a bit battered - it caused amusement among the young people because it was the only time they had ever seen their parents in a loving embrace on the floor!

All the Fitch children married during the War or in 1920's / 30's.

1. Emily Howard Fitch married Joseph Connick and they adopted a daughter. No issue.

2. Mary Anne married Arthur Burrows and they had 2 children - Robbie and Molly. Both children died before their 5th birthdays, Robbie in 1920 from menigitis and Molly 11 months later from an enlarged gland in her chest (note from Sandra - my mother Eileen McKay, Sheila's cousin, said Molly dropped dead when a large dog jumped up at her)

3. Charlotte married Arthur Tye at St Augustines Church, Gillingham and had 3 children. Mary, Alfred (Freddie) and James who died aboard HMS Kent in May 1944. ( see 'Fitch Family At War WW2).

4. James married Jean Logan in Scotland in 1932.

5. Winifred married Bertie Burrage at St Marks Church, Gillingham in August 1922 and had 2 children, Sheila born 1923 (author of this memoir) and David born 1930. (see also Sandra's memories of 'Uncle Bert')

6. Victoria Rose married Arthur Higgins at Paddington Register Office (London) and had 5 girls - Audrey, Joan, Christine, Eileen and Betty. (see also Higgins histories and documents).

7. William (Billy) married Vera Woodcock in 1923 and moved to Plymouth on transferring from Chatham to Devonport Dockyard. They had 2 children - Raymond who died in his early 20's of TB and Stephen who was born when Ray was 19 years old!

Godparent of Stephen were James Tye and Joan Higgins.

8.Alfred (Freddie) married Dorothy Durham in 1925, the only 'white' wedding in the family. Their daughter Kay was born 14 years later.

In the late 1940's Freddie made a cabinet from re-cycled wood and built a television into it - it was one of the first tv's in Gillingham. Dolly and Freddie's home, 24 Cowper Road, Gillingham, was full of family and neighbours on 2nd June 1953 watching the Coronation on Freddie's television.

After her family had married and left home, my grandmother, Emily Howard, enjoyed her sisters coming from Sunderland to visit her. I remember Great Aunt Rose coming and enjoyed her visits as she was a sweet and gentle lady. Several times she came to tea at my mothers- 63 Byron Road, and we had special sandwiches and trifle. 

On one of these visits I remember grandmother being most irate. She had made a bowl of starch as it was wash day and at that time, collars, cufs and table linen were all starched to stiffen them and keep them clean for longer. Aunt Rose, thinking she was helping and not being a very practical lady, had washed up the breakfast dishes in grandma's bowl of starch!

My grandmother's elder sister, Bella, came from Sunderland for a visit. She was a jolly, practical lady, not a bit like her sister Rose in looks or character. She was not as tall as my grandma and she hadn't the McKay red hair and blue eyes. She was like her mother, dark haired and brown eyed. During her visit she asked me to show her the shops. I must have been about 6 years old at the time. We walked down Canterbury Street to Gillingham High Street and spent a lot of time looking at wares in the Penny Bazaar which was the fore-runner of Marks And Spencers in Gillingham. I was thrilled when Great Aunt Bella led me into a new building at the lower end of Canterbury Street - the Pavillion, which had a dance hall at the back and a posh restaurant at the front.

We sat in the restaurant and Auntie ordered tea and cakes. I felt like a queen - then we took the tram back up Canterbury Street to Byron Road and sat on the top deck!

The children of Lottie, Winnie and Rose spent a lot of time together as children and young people as they lived near each other.

My mother also remembered Christmases at Byron Road. Their older sister, Charlotte Rosetta (Lottie), named after her paternal grandmother, came home for Christmas from the convent where she was training.

Lottie sang and played the organ well and was great fun with the younger members of the family. At Christmas, she would dress up as Father Christmas with cotton wool and their mothers old dressing gown and would supervise the pulling of presents from the bran tub. These were sugar pigs and mice, apples, oranges, nuts, tiny wooden or wax dolls, small wooden carts and sweets wrapped in screws of paper. By the end, the room was covered in bran and paper and nut shells, and no vacuum cleaner to clean them up with!

Christmas dinner was usually the cheapest cut of beef - rather fatty brisket - and masses of potatoes and suet pudding to fill up with.

Even into old age, Winnie could never refuse a dare. As children, her brother James (Jim) dared her to hold onto the clothes line while he and Billy pulled her up. They pulled the pulley rope and Winnie rose into the air, just as their mother glanced out of the window. She shouted and hammered the window with her fist. Jim and Billy let go of the rope - they knew their mothers wrath - and Winnie plummeted to the ground. No damage was done but Winnie never exceeded 5 feet in height and her mother said this was due to her escapade with her brothers and the clothes line!