Family Footprints in the Sands of Time

 When I decided to start this project I needed to come up with a name for my book, but I didn’t have to look to far for inspiration.   In fact I  was very lazy and decided to name it after my heritage blog, which I started in back in 2013.

The nine charts of Blackbird Designs, Loose Feathers series, ‘For the Birds’ lent itself very nicely to the three generations of my family.  That’s two sets of grandparents, my parents, myself and the two siblings I grew up with. But there was also another sister that we never got to know because she didn't survive.

This meant I needed a tenth chart that would fit in with the project, and I found  another Blackbird Designs chart, ‘Forget Me Not – In Remembrance, which was perfect.  All I had to do was change the colour pallet, so that it matched the other charts. 

The inside cover of my Heritage Book details everyone, 

their full names, ages and dates, and each  panel carries their initials,  but who were they?  

Read on to find out a little bit more about them all.

Maternal Grandparents.

Emily Mary Waters - It's Spring Fever 

Emily was born in December 1891 in Stratford, East London and was one of eight children.

She worked in service until she married in 1918, at the age of 26, after which she became a housewife, taking care of her seven children. The family moved to Dagenham, East London and while her husband was away at war, she would take in washing and ironing, to help pay the bills.  After her husband passed away, she  moved to Harold Hill, in Essex, to be close to her three daughters and she remined there until her she passed away in 1975.

Frederick James Gowers   - The Light Upon The Lawn

Frederick was born in May 1888, in Walthamstow, West London and was the eldest of eight children. I don’t know what he did before his call up, but her fought in the ‘Great War’ 1914 – 1918.  

After the war he worked for the London and North Eastern Railway, first as a general labourer and then as an electrician. 

He passed away in 1944, suffering from lung cancer.

 

Paternal Grandparents

Sarah Elizabeth Louisa Scanlan – She Sights A Bird

Unfortunately, I know very little about my grandmother’s early life.  She was born in Plaistow, East London, in September 1900.  Before her marriage in September 1922, she was working as a publican in her father’s pub.  

After her marriage, the summer months each year were spent 'Hopping' in the Kent countryside,  along with many other Londoners.

 and eventually, because they were spending so much time in Kent, they decided to move to Wilmington, with their first two children, Tom & Margaret (Peggy)   

There was another move back to Manor Park, East London, where their third child, John was born and they stayed there for many years.

Sarah made one final move back to Dartford, to be close to her daughter, after her husband passed away.

Sadly, she suffered a stroke and passed away in 1999, just missing her 100^th birthday.

William Archibald Hyde – All The Hills Echoed

William, also known as Will, was born 1898.  

When he and Sarah married, they took over managing an off-licence from her father,  but there was some sort of disagreement.  It ended with them leaving and moving to  Kent where he found a job  working as a gardener in a big house and living in the gardeners cottage, within the walled garden.

Later he changed his job and worked at Long Reach, on the river Thames, driving a small train that moved aggregate onto the boats.  

The family eventually moved back to Manor Park, East London where he worked as a gate keeper for British Road Services, checking lorries in and out of the yard, but he had many years of ill health, and passed away in 1969 suffering from emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Parents

 Irene Mary Gowers – Sing A Song Of Seasons

 Irene, also known as Rene, was born May 1926 in Dagenham, East London and was the second oldest of seven children.  During the Second World War, she worked in a factory that made light  bulbs for the aircrafts and the factory was bombed by the Germans.

Fortunately she wasn’t there that day, but many people lost their lives. 

After that, she went to work in the Houndsditch Warehouse, a large department store.

She married in May 1946 and was given away by her uncle, because her father had passed away two years earlier. 

They continued to live with her mother in Dagenham, where they had their first child and a little later they moved to their own home 'out in the country', which was a prefabricated estate on the edge of Epping Forest, in Loughton Essex.  It was here that their other children were born.  As the family got bigger, they out grew their home and moved just a couple miles away to a larger house. 

While her two boys were at school, Rene worked for her husbands boss.  She cleaned their home and also made tea and cleaned the factory offices, which was perfect because she was able to take her young daughter with her.  As as soon as her daughter started school, Rene started a full time job at the Bank of England Printing Works, in Loughton, but due to continuing ill health, she had to move to part time work and eventually had to give up working completely.  She sadly lost her fight against chronic Bronchitis and Emphysema in September 1998, age 63.

William Thomas Hyde – Pleasure Of The Fleeting Year

William was always known as Tom…..odd, I know but it was because he grew up in a house with his father and grandfather and they were all called William!

Tom was born in Plaistow, East London in June 1923 and along with his extended family, would head off to Goudhurst, in Kent to pick hops during the summer months.  The family spent so much time in Kent, they eventually moved to Wilmington, to a cottage in the grounds of a big house and Tom spent much of his childhood, playing in the walled garden.  

As soon as he was able, he would go to work with his father, and drive the little train along the banks of the Thames, at Long Reach, in Dartford.  His first job when he left school was for Walkers, the jewellers and he also joined the Home Guard.

Eventually he was called for national service and joined The Royal Norfolk Regiment, where  he saw service in France and Germany and later, Ireland, Palestine and Egypt.

After his marriage and while his young family were growing up, he had many jobs, cleaning windows, delivering milk, driving a lorry, delivering steel work and finally becoming an instrument mechanic.

An interesting note about their marriage is that the two families were connected before, because Rene's Uncle and Tom's Aunty were married.  Their daughter Pat was Rene's best friend and cousin and she introduced her to Tom, who was also Pat's cousin.....are you still with me?

Tom too had many health issues, having been diagnosed with asbestosis.  He also had to have lifesaving surgery because of an aortic aneurism, and he lost his sight due to macular degeneration. 

He finally succumbed to stomach cancer in August 2010 at the age of 87.

Children

Keith Dennis Hyde – Hear The Crickets Sing

Keith entered the world in October 1947, in the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, London, and they say that if you are born within the sound of Bow Bells, as he was, you are a true Cockney.

Growing up, it was realised quite early on that he had problems with his feet, which caused him to walk on his toes.  This meant lots of time spent attending doctors and hospital appointments and this in turn had an impact on the time he spent in school. 

The family home was in Loughton, Essex and that was where he lived all his life, working quite close by, first for Nu-Tone Hammers, making hammers for piano’s and then moving to another local factory, Ozalid, where he stayed until her retired at the age of 65.  

He was very much a loner and found it difficult mixing with others.  He never married and continued to live with his father  and when Tom passed away, Keith remained living in the flat on his own.

Keith had underlying health issues that had never really been diagnosed, because he refused to get medical help and would never go to see a doctor.   Eventually it all caught up with him and he was rushed to hospital where we found out that he had been suffering for many years with the same condition that John Merrick, The Elephant Man had.  That was Neurofibromatosis, a condition that causes cancerous lumps to grow on the nerve endings throughout the body. 

By the time he was diagnosed, Keith had tumours in his bowel, stomach, spine and in his brain and he passed away just a few short weeks later,  in 2018.

Michael, Frederick John Hyde – The Last Ripe Berries

When Michael arrived into the world in September 1949, it was with great happiness but it was also tinged with a little sadness.   The reason……well, if everything had gone the way it should have, Rene and Tom would have been welcoming twins.  At some point during the pregnancy, Rene miss carried but by some miracle, she remained pregnant and went on to have Michael.

Michael’s early years were plagued with bad eczema and extremely bad asthma attacks, which meant he spent a lot of time in Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, and he was one of the first children to trial the use of steroids.  As a consequence of this, he missed a lost a time at school.

When he eventually left school, he went to work in central London for the publishers, Hodder and Stoughton but after a while, he decided that commuting to the city every day on the train wasn’t really for him and few local jobs followed.

In 1973 he decided to take a six month break, and traveled to New Zealand, with his best friend, who had family living out there.  They spent the first three months, sightseeing and after that, had to find work to help pay for their keep.  Their first job was working on a Turkey Farm and then they tried their hands at painting and decorating.

Once home, he got a job as a driver, working at the same factory as his Dad and Brother, in Loughton where the family lived, and this was where he met his future wife Dawn.

He married in 1981 and brought their first home in Barkingside, North East London, before later moving to Collier Row, Romford, Essex, where they had their son, Lee.

Michael realised that he loved driving and had two or three other jobs over the years, delivering saws and knives to butchers shops all across the UK and his final job was delivering pet food and bedding, which he did until he retired in 2016 at the age of 66.

Six years on, they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their time by the sea and he and his wife decided to move to Mersea Island, near Colchester Essex, where they live now. 

Kathleen  Hyde – Forget Me Not

Unfortunately, I have very little information about Kathleen,.

She was born with a hole in her heart and only survived for eight hours.

Paperwork shows that her death was registered in the last quarter of 1950 but doesn’t show an exact date of birth.

The sad thing is that she was never spoken about, and although my mum had told me about her, my two brothers didn’t know of her existence until after our mum passed away.  It was at this time, as we were sorting out her belongings, we came across the paperwork and receipt for her burial, but this has since gone missing.

As I mentioned, mum did talk to me about her and told me that she was taken away and buried in someone else’s grave, which I believe was a very common occurrence back then.

She is resting in the cemetery of our local church, St John’s, in Loughton, Essex, and although we don’t know exactly where in the cemetery she is, it’s comforting to know that not too far away, her mum, dad and big brother are also resting.

I have one other little snippet to share with you.

I never understood why mum’s favourite song was ‘I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen’,    I think I have my answer now! 

Susan Janice Hyde  -  The Summer Beaming Forth

Mum had more miscarriages after the loss of Kathleen, and I eventually joined the family in September 1956.

I started school at the age  4 ½ and it was while at the infants school, I had my first taste of needlework, stitching crosses on the red gingham curtains of the Wendy house.   

Who could have guessed what that would lead to, Lol!

School was very unremarkable and if I’m honest I struggled at times, but I did tend to be drawn to the more artistic side of the curriculum, enjoying art, needlework and cookery.  I loved music too and sung in the school and church choir.

When I left school in 1973, I wanted to do floristry or window dressing but I really couldn’t face more years at collage and left school not knowing what I was going to do.

I worked two years at a local branch of Lloyds Bank and then went to work for the Bank of England Printing Works, where my mum had also worked.   I stayed there for 28 years doing various jobs within the bank and retired early (at the age of 47) to take care of my dad, who’s health was failing.

Throughout the years I have dabbled in many crafts. 

Crochet, knitting, machine knitting, making jewellery, paper crafts, cake decorating, tapestry, embroidery and of course cross stitch all appear on that list.

I never married, despite being in a relationship for ten years and still live in Loughton, in the flat I purchased in 1983.

Before I ‘retired’ I was scrapbooking a heritage album and making greetings cards as a hobby, so after finishing work in 2003 I decided to make it into real business and started selling my cards and making  wedding Stationary.   That was when Sue’s Krafty Kards was born and I did that for the next 10 years.

These days, I don’t do very much at all really because my health is not that great.  I have type 2 diabetes, an underactive thyroid and osteoarthritis in both knees and my hip, in fact I am due to have a hip replacement in a few weeks’ time, after which I hope to get my life back to some sort of normality.  

In the meantime, I intend to continue to feed my passion for cross stitching.

 

So that’s my family.

There’s nothing very remarkable here, just three generations of a working class family spanning 135 years.

Happy Stitching!

Sue

x