Jean Wheeler: Everyday Life

By Jean Wheeler (taken from the film transcript with names added)

I first started coming, when I was 25 and I got my little son, Paul, who was then nearly four, who then, eventually in the years became head choir boy here. And my daughter, Susan, was seven months old when I came here. 

And it was lovely. Sunday was a lovely day. 

But because I’d got four children (Paul, Susan, Kathryn & Claire), and I worked, it was hard to come any other time. 

So, my jumble sales was my night out. It was good. It was a family. We kept together and helped each other. 

Going to church, getting your children ready and yourself – because I was the last – was hard, but we did it. 

Everybody rushing here, rushing there, getting underneath everybody’s feet. But we came, and I enjoyed it. But more often than not, my three older children came down with their father, Roy, and then I would push my little one, Claire, in the pram down and go into the back of the church, which is where the mothers sat, then, with the push chairs, 

I left school at 14. Because I had rheumatic fever when I was 13, I was told I couldn’t do these things. It wasn’t a job I wanted, I wanted nursing, but I was told I wouldn’t be able to do it. But going to the shop, what I had to do in the shop was harder work than being a nurse – scrubbing the floors, cleaning the shop windows. You were just nobody. You just ran around and did things, you know.

Until I married, I’d been out scrubbing floors for seven and a half p an hour to help out with the family food and one thing and another. And I’m not bragging about it. I was pleased to do it. 

When, I suppose my young one was about six years old, I got to NatWest and I ended up running the post room. I did that for eight years and then I retired at 60. 

I’ve always been busy and I’ve enjoyed it. And if I could have my life over again, it would be the same as what I’ve had now. 

And I have a good life. 

I’ve got a good family, I’ve got good friends, and I’ve got my faith, which should have been put first. Faith. I don’t know what I’d do without that. 

The times I say, Lord, I’ve lost something, and all of a sudden it’ll come, and I’m told where it is, or it’ll suddenly turn up where I least expect it. 

But keep your faith, and if you’ve got your faith, you’ve got everything. Money’s not everything, but faith is. 

(About St Peter’s today) I’m all for progress, but it’s not like my old church. It’s completely gutted in here to what it was. I had a shock when I came through and saw all this. But that’s the times. And if it’s drawing people in, then I’m all for it. 

Long as I don’t have to clean it.