ALEXANDRA KATE SAYERS (1902-
Kate Sayers was the daughter of Charles Brewer, a mainstay of the Leatherhead Brass Band in the early years of the 20th century. Born locally she lived most of her life in the town, enjoying a poor but happy childhood, then a hard-working life and ultimately suffered a deep and lasting tragedy.
Interviewed so long after the event, she was mistaken in her memory about the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. See Clip, “Lost on the Titanic”. It was not Herbert Stenning who died on the ship but another local resident, Harvey Collyer, whose wife and young daughter were rescued. In fact, Herbert Stenning had been drowned at sea but on the London and South Western Railway packet Stella many years earlier. That sank en-route for the Channel Islands on Maundy Thursday, 30 April 1899. Mr Stenning had just topped the poll in the local council elections and gone for an Easter weekend holiday. The Stella was racing a rival ship to reach St Helier harbour. She struck the Casquets reef at full speed, sinking almost immediately. 105 lives were lost, 112 saved. The Stenning family received £6200 from the railway company in compensation. Herbert’s son Edward invested part of this in the building of St Nicholas Hill, in partnership with his friend the builder W.H. Brown. Herbert’s widow, Louisa, and her daughters lived there in Overdale (now demolished and replaced by a new road The Limes). After Louisa’s death the ‘Misses Stenning’ ran a home for unmarried mothers there.
Interview date: 5th August 1981
Location: Magazine Place
Interviewer: Edwina Vardy
Early years
I was born on June 26th, 1902. King Edward’s and Queen Alexandra’s coronation day in a tiny cottage in River Lane, Leatherhead. I lived there with my brother and my mother and father until I was seven.
What were the names of your father and mother?
Mr Charles Brewer and Mrs Brewer.
Did she come from Leatherhead?
No, my mother came from Ockley and my father came from Stoney Stratford. He worked for Barry’s, coal merchants.
Did your mother work?
No, she did go out to work a bit before we left River Lane but after River Lane she was caretaker with my husband over Lloyds Bank. It was the Capital and Counties Bank then.
Schooldays
I started school at the age of three as my brother who was two years older than me wouldn’t go to school unless I went too. We went to the Fairfield School. A Miss Morley was our governess with the help of other teachers. There we wrote on slates with slate pencils. I remember trenches open outside our back door where the water company were laying pipes to give us a water supply for a tap in the shed and a flush lavatory, also in the shed. About 1905, that was. Before we had this supply all our water had to be got from a well. We had bucket lavatories. The Council used to send a cart round to empty our buckets. We had bucket lavatories at school too. My mother had many a trot across the yard about 16 feet to fill a kettle to get it to boil on our tiny open range and all the dirty plates etc had to be taken out to the shed for washing up in a kettle of hot water. My mother must have walked miles during the day across those cobblestones. I remember a poor little man who used to call once a week and sell lovely oranges – four one penny. Poor little man used to walk on his knees as he had had both of his legs taken off below the knee. We children were really scared of him and used to call him – unbeknown to him – the “orange bogeyman”.
What was your brother’s name?
We all called him Jim. He was known as Jim Brewer. My father was Charles. Originally, he was christened Charles, but they couldn’t have two Charleses in the family.
Leatherhead Brass Band
My father, who was very interested in music, took a great interest in the Leatherhead Brass Band. After work he would always have a wash and tidy up and have a meal and then go up into my mother and father’s bedroom and practise for at least an hour.
What instrument did he play?
A cornet. All the children in our cottages – we were two, next door Mr and Mrs Bullen had six and the end house had five or six. We all knew that when Mr Brewer, my father, started practising it was bedtime, even when we moved to North Street, the mothers on Gravel Hill used to get the children to bed to listen to the music. No wireless or gramophones in those days. My father was taught to play any and every musical instrument when he was a tiny child by his father who, with his children, used to play for all the church services around about Stoney Stratford in Wiltshire. They used to play at any festive occasion, harvest homes, barn dances etc.
My aunts have told me how my grandfather used to pile all his eight children and his wife into a wagon and Grandpa would drive there and back after a long day’s work on the farm and play their instruments until the early hours of the morning and then return home, sometimes in pouring rain. No tarpaulins then. Only sacks to put round their shoulders. My Grandpa used to beat time with his long whip and woe betide any of the children or wife either who made a wrong note. He would flip the stinging end of his whip around their faces or hands. It was all string music then. Home to bed and up again early the next morning to get the milking done. No wonder my father left home and walked from Salisbury to Surrey in search of another job.
Do you inherit any of his musical talent or did your brother?
My brother did. I never bothered about it. Mine was needlework.
What did your brother play?
Every instrument there was to play, I think. My father made him as fluent as he was.
They were in the Leatherhead Silver Band?
It wasn’t a Silver Band until after the First World War.
Did he found it?
I don’t know whether he did or not, but we have been interested in the band ever since I can remember. Before I was born at any rate.
River Mole flooding
About 1905 you were telling me about the River Mole flooding.
I remember the River Mole flooding and coming in under the front door. We had to stay upstairs in two tiny rooms. If it was school days, my mother and father used to carry us up and over the gardens at the back of our house and put us over the fence into Black Alley.
Where’s Black Alley?
It’s down at the side of the Bull Inn at Station Road.
Was the Bull Inn there then in a much grander form or was it the doctor’s house?
That was the doctor’s house. Dr Hearnden. Black Alley – so that we could go to school out of the way. Our school was near the British Legion Club then. We moved to North Street about 1909.
New Year celebrations before 1914
All our life was centred around the Leatherhead Band. It nearly collapsed during the 1914 war. Up till then we used to look forward to New Year’s Eve when all Leatherhead who could would congregate around the town clock or fire station as it was then. After the shops shut at eight o’clock, the square, as we used to call it, would gradually fill up so that even the motor cars we had about then had to go by at a snail’s pace to get through.
There weren’t many motor cars then.
There were a few here because my brother got knocked down with one. An old Ford car and that was before we moved up River Lane. We didn’t have many delivery vans but there were private cars round and about. The band would start playing about 8.30 and all the middle cleared. Nobody said anything. The folks just knew there would be all the old-fashioned dances – waltzes and two-steps etc. We had a wonderful view from our rooms over Lloyds Bank.
Our old town clock looked beautiful in the gaslight. The band had its own acetylene lighting these dark nights. As the old clock struck midnight everyone would stop dancing and join in singing Auld Lang Syne and other old songs until about one o’clock. Beer was drunk aplenty but there were hardly any drunks and by one o’clock the crowd would gradually thin out and by 1.30 the street would be quiet. Nobody had any trouble or vandalism in those days. The band used to practise in the parish room in the Fairfield. The young boys would go on Mondays from seven o’clock till nine. My father would teach them and on Friday night from eight o’clock till ten the older bandsmen used to go for practice.
Childhood fun in springtime and summer
Our next event to look forward to was Easter time when during the school holidays we would go to Fetcham and on to Bookham Common and pick primroses as flowers for our mothers.
That must have been for Mother’s Day?
We never had a Mother’s Day in those days. We only used to go out and get the flowers and bring them home. There was no Mother’s or Father’s Day then. Then at Whitsun tide all our winter clothes were put away in big wooden chests with plenty of Keeting’s [?] powder and keep the moth out. Out would come all our summer clothes – cotton knickers and petticoats, all stiffly starched and [?] frills that used to chafe our little legs. In July, there would be a [?] gala which all children revelled in. A penny to ride on the roundabout, halfpenny on the swings ……..and a penny for thee rings in the hoopla. The band would play for dancing from seven till ten. It was a pretty sight. The grass would have been cut and the ladies in their pretty dresses were lovely to see. The [?] gala was in aid of some charity and generally held in the Elmer Meadow. That’s just it. Where the Rising Sun pub is, and other houses are built now.
After the [?] gala about the beginning of August, the bank holiday, the flower show would be held in the Elmer Meadow too about two or three weeks later and what a show it was. All the children at school used to compete with needlework etc.
Did you take part?
Yes, I used to exhibit. After Whitsun, the band used to play every Wednesday evening from seven until ten in various gentlemen’s gardens for charity at what they called promenade concerts.
My father would have his tea and get ready to walk to the different gentlemen’s houses where the lawns were like very smooth billiard tables. And the band would assemble and play from seven until 9.30 for dancing on the lawn. They were very well patronised. Folks used to look forward to their Wednesday evenings out and at the interval we used to walk around the lovely gardens. Mr and Mrs Still at Winfield was a very favourite place, Tates at Downside, another Keswick at Bookham and Tyrrell’s Wood. Norbury Park, the Elmer – that was a huge house where now the waterworks cottages are built. Randalls Park, now the crematorium. Also, Millers at The Mansion, now the public library. The Leatherhead vicarage and Burtons at the Red House. Fetcham Park owned by the Hankeys. Sturgess of Givons Grove. Tates Downside, Clarks at Mickleham. All these lovely houses and grounds were on view, not inside the houses, at the kindness of their owners for charity.
What happened if it rained?
It rained and we went and stood under the trees, but we hardly ever had any rain. We had beautiful summers. As I said, all my clothes were put away and out came my white clothes. We never had any bad summers before the 14-18 war.
Did you have refreshments?
No. We just went in. If you didn’t dance you could stand around or sit around and watch the dancing, see the dancing. They used to do the lancers and the quadrilles and all sorts there. It really was beautiful. Over here Mrs Stills, well everywhere the grass was like a billiard table. Then of course during the interval when the band had a rest, we were all allowed to go and look round the gardens. Cor, dear oh dear, what beautiful gardens!
Winter
Did the bandsmen get paid?
No, not that I know of. They all did it as a voluntary contribution. I think they had a little share out at the end of the year out of the general funds, but I don’t think they were ever paid at all. They had long walks too after they had done a day’s work. Most of them worked till five o’clock and then were there to start playing at seven. Eventually the evenings would get darker and promenade concerts were over for another year. Then at the end of November the band would start playing carols at different parts of Leatherhead once a week for charity again until Xmas Eve when they would be playing in the street, the town clock to start, then Running Horse yard, then the Duke’s Head yard and so on until the New Year.
Did you all join in the carols?
Yes, anybody that was there used to sing carols too. Leatherhead has absolutely altered. One year, I can’t remember which one, they all entered a band contest at Crowborough. They won first prize. My father used to sit all evening and arrange music for the different instruments in the band and he also composed a piece of music which he sent to the music people in London and they sent him £10 which was quite a lot of money in those days.
Have you a copy of it?
No, I wish I had. To buy the composition outright they gave him £10. I know they changed the name he gave it. After the 1914 war the band had to be re-formed. My brother, who was in the army band, was demobbed and started playing at first cornet again but one or two of the poor men never did come back. They re-formed again but times had altered. Large estates were being broken up and so like everything else, everything comes to an end one day.
The end of World War One
What did your brother do for a living?
Gardener up at Cherkley. Every Saturday afternoon during the 1914-18 war we were all short of butter. Our ration allowance was very small. The children used to go to the back of St John’s College and buy a basin of lovely dripping for about sixpence. How we used to enjoy the dripping toast. We had tea on Sunday and Monday, then my mother used to make us a lovely cake with dripping too. There was a man used to come round on Sundays about mid-day with a two-wheeled cart selling winkles at one penny per pint. When peace was declared in 1918 everybody went mad with rejoicing. The men pulled up fences and anything wooden they could lay their hands on and had a huge bonfire outside the Old Bull, that used to be where the gas office is now. Somebody had a few fireworks saved always for this special day and everybody joined hands and sang all the patriotic songs they knew until well after midnight.
Horse-drawn fire brigade
Tell me about the town clock.
When I first knew it, the room at the bottom of the building housed a fire tender and horses that used to pull it were council horses used with the tip cart to collect rubbish in the bins. The firemen were only ordinary workmen. Mr Penfold who lived at the top of Gravel Hill used to be first at the fire station.
How did they summon the fire brigade?
Bells, they all had bells on their houses and that was run from I suppose the police station or somewhere. They all had a big bell and we could hear this bell going.
Were there many fires? Wooden houses?
Yes. Mr Penfold who lived at the top of Gravel Hill used, he with the other helpers, to get the tender out of the town clock and have it ready to put the horses in. The horses were stabled in the yard at the side of the chemist’s, Hewlins in Bridge Street. The other side of the yard entrance was a butcher’s shop and a shoe shop, and then a small cottage where Mr Wafforn used to live. He was in charge of the horses.
They would come galloping along from Bridge Street to the fire station and by that time the whole of the volunteers for fire brigade duty would be there. The horses were ready and what a sight it was to see all the men on a scarlet tender with all their brass helmets on. I remember such an event when St John’s College was on fire. It was all the front. Then the big fire at the mill at Fetcham near the millpond. After that there was no activity at the mill, everything seemed to alter. Watercress beds appeared and a fire station was built in River Lane.
Sad to say our lovely old town clock was dismantled. Who did it and where is it now? Somebody on the Council sold it to America. No matter where it is, it was a good old clock and had to be wound once a week by the clockmaker who lived in The Crescent, a Mr Maspiro [?].
Bathing in the river
Before the 1914-18 war there used to be an old barn down near the river which had been altered into a swimming bath for St John’s pupils only. On rare occasions were the public allowed to use them. The youth of Leatherhead used to go down into the meadows, Ronsons now, was Hartsells. There was a place where the cows used to go down and drink. We all called it the little bathing hole. It used to be a favourite place for us children to go and gather king cups and milkmaids for our maypoles. How we used to love parading our maypoles around.
Further on down the river there was another place we used to call the big bathing hole. And all the youths of 14 and over used to go down there on Sunday mornings and take soap and towel and have a good scrub down when the weather was good enough. We children were never allowed to go down there unless our parents were with us. Because nobody had a bathroom in those days. The boys used to go down there. Everybody was bathing in front of a kitchen fire in one bath and that sort of thing. That’s what we did down River Lane but when we got up to the bank, we did have a bath up there.
Living above a bank
So, it was comfortable accommodation at the bank?
Oh yes, we loved it there. We could sit in the window and see everything from the window.
Did you ever have any robberies? Part of the job was guarding the bank, wasn’t it?
My mother had to look after the bank and see everything was all locked up and keep the windows clean. She did that for rent, you see. Of course, my father didn’t earn very much money in those days. I don’t know what he did earn.
Working for Lord Beaverbrook
My brother started up at Stills here as a garden boy. Then he went to the war and he came back and went up to Beaverbrook’s. Up at Cherkley.
Was he happy at Beaverbrook’s?
Oh, very happy yes.
Was he there until he retired?
Yes. He must have been up there ages. Twenty or thirty years because he was there when Beaverbook himself died. He knew the first Lady Beaverbrook and then he stayed on when Beaverbrook married again. My brother only died this last February, I think it was.
Did he like Beaverbrook?
I suppose he did. He was there.
Historic records
Did he marry, your brother?
Yes, that’s his niece. She had all the records of the band and that’s what started all this off. Me giving that seal. I was down talking to my niece one day at the gate and Mr Bruce [David Bruce, successively Hon Secretary, Local History Society Records Secretary and Museum Curator between 1969 and 1992] came up. I said I know you, but I can’t place you. I said you’ve been up to see me before? He said yes and he had a paper in his hand, something in his hand, and he had that photograph in his hand to ask me to do that for him. Not of the band, of the brewery people.
Then I said to my niece, you’ve got those old band records, haven’t you? Yes, she said but George wants them – that’s her husband. They were my brother’s until he died, and he hadn’t let anybody see them. They were his property. When he died, I had them up here and looked through them. There’s not much detail in them, only their expenditure and that sort of thing. I said to my niece when you’ve finished with them don’t put them in the dustbin because she’s a rare one to put everything in the dustbin. Yesterday’s paper will go straight in the dustbin! So, I said when you have finished with those will you let Mr Bruce have them? Give them to me and I’ll take them down to Hampton Cottage, but she took them down herself. So, I said I’d write him out some details.
Lost on the Titanic
Someone from Leatherhead was lost on the Titanic.
Oh, that was Mr Stenning, a solicitor. He had an office in London, used to go to London every day. Then there were his sons, Mr Edward Stenning, Mr Bernard Stenning and another one…Claud Stenning.
They had offices over Lloyds Bank?
I never knew Mr Stenning, but the three sons had these offices between them I think because they all used to come up there. Poor Mr Bernard Stenning he went to the 1914-18 war and never came back. He was the youngest son. Poor Mrs Stenning lived up at St Nicholas Hill. Had a big house up there. I think there were two or three daughters – Misses Stennings – but Mr Bernard Stenning was a very nice young man. So were they all but we were the ones that knew him the most. He was the youngest and died in the war and poor Mr Stenning the father went down with the Titanic.
You had a memorial service.
Yes, well on the Sunday after the Titanic sank a memorial service was arranged at the recreation ground in Kingston Road. All denominations attended and there were crowds of people there. The band played the hymns there from about three o’clock in the afternoon till five o’clock. I remember that very vividly. Sad, it was and everything.
Your father wrote special music.
Well he had to get the hymn music out of the hymn books and write all the different parts for the different instruments. He did a lot of that. He used to buy one piece of music and then he would compose all the rest of it, all the other parts for the other instruments.
When did your father die? Before the Second World War?
No, 1948 I think it was.
Are your parents buried in the churchyard?
Yes, up here in the churchyard. There wasn’t a crematorium here then.
Working in service
I went out to service, I was 14 on the 26th June and I was out to service on 27th. I earned half a crown a week. I used to have to go in the morning and scrub the steps, three lots of steps all round. The front, the back and the garden steps which were never used. I had to scrub them every morning with cold water and a scrubbing brush and I used to have to get as much water as I could off the step. I didn’t dare leave the step wet. Then I used to have to go in and wash up all the dirty breakfast things.
What time did your working day end?
Seven o’clock until three in the afternoon. Half a crown a week.
You had to give your mother something out of that?
Yes, I had to give her about five shillings a week to live at home. [????] Then after that I went into service in the Forty Foot Road……no I went to service down at Warnham for 12 months. I had a lovely job there, but it was so far away from everybody that I came back and got a job round here. My mother said why don’t you come home again? Jim’s gone to the…….he’d been gone. She said now he’s come home again you might just as well come home too. He’d got a young lady and they got married and lived with my mother and she said you’d better go out to sleep again so I went out to sleep and I think I had five shillings a week up here doing all the housework. There was Mr and Mrs Maw of the Maw chemists.
I was there 12 months. Then my brother’s wife was going to have a baby, so my mother said you had better come home and help me with the baby. Like a fool I went home. I got a daily job with Mr and Mrs James in the Fairfield, the brewery people.
Did they have a big house?
Yes, it’s still there, Kingswood. Yes, it was a fairly big house. I wouldn’t say a big house but fairly big. It had four nice big bedrooms.
The Swan Brewery
The brewery they owned was the Swan Brewery.
They didn’t own it. He only had a part share in it. Mr James had a part share in it and Mrs Hew Williams had a part share in it. They were all directors. Mrs James had a share in it and one of the Miss Jameses had a share in it. They were all little shares. When the Leatherhead brewery closed down, that was in the time when people had boils on their faces, and I used to have to take a big jug like that and get some yeast on brewing days. We used to take this big jug and there’d be no end of us round there…..take our jug in there. That was a penny that was.
And you put the yeast on the boils?
No, we ate it.
Of course, brewers’ yeast, Vitamin B.
We had gallons of it.
A taste you acquire. But then it’s that sort of thing that if you think it’s going to do you any good you don’t mind it. What do you take in these pills the doctor gives you? You could get a jugful of that brewer’s yeast and take it you know. It would do you a darn sight of good. This synthetic yeast in no good.
I left sleeping in service and went home to live again…..because my mother had to work at the bank offices to keep going and she said you come home and help me. Cause Mary wouldn’t be able to help her or anything like that so like a fool I went home. Still, I suppose it turned out all right in the end. Yes, we all agreed there.
Meeting husband Arthur Ernest Sayers (1902-1980)
You went home to live in 1924.
Yes. To help my mother with the work. I knew a Mrs Searle. She said to me would you like a little daily job? So of course, I said yes, I would try it. So, I went to the daily job she asked me to do and she wouldn’t pay me a pound a week. So, I said no, I’m not going to work for anybody under a pound a week. Good gracious I said. You want me up here from seven o’clock in the morning until five or half past at night. I said, a pound a week, I wouldn’t take it.
So, Mrs Blaker, who I went to see, rang up Mrs James and said she had just had me up there. That was on a Monday and on the Tuesday Mrs James was round my house and asked me to go up and see her. She said I don’t know if you will like it. She said I’ve got a daughter up there with two children. She said I can’t manage it and I’ve got nobody to do any work so will you come up? I said yes and I went up there.
Well I was already engaged to a fellow then and I was up there for about two and a half years. Then a fellow came around to put a washer on the tap. He knocked at the back door and I said hello, what do you want? He said I’ve come to put a washer on the tap in the garden. I said you know where the tap is as well as me. I said you go and do it. I’m not coming with you, I’ve got my steps to clean and I went to clean the step. When he had finished doing the [tap] he came around and said I’ve finished doing the [tap] I don’t think I have to pay you. You will have to send the bill in and off he went.
I knew him because he had been to the same school that I had. Another day I was going out the gate to go home and he was outside his gate. He lived next door practically to Mrs James. He was on his motor bike going off to work and I said you’re not going my way, else I’d have a nice ride. He said oh you must come one evening. I said what do you think? It went on from that.
I tried to joke him off and that sort of thing. Any rate I had already thrown up the fellow I was going with and he started coming around. Then Mrs James’ daughter moved away to the Highlands Road where they built their house. I went – and the baby had got older and my sister in law was able to get about and help my mother – so I went up to Mrs James’ to sleep cause there was only Mr and Mrs James up there in that big house. She said she’d like me to sleep in so I went up there to sleep in and I’m blowed if this blessed fellow didn’t come round.
You were very near then.
Next door. So of course, he kept coming around every night and his mother was very much against it. She told me we should never make a go of it. My mother said what on earth do you want him for? You don’t want to marry him. You want somebody better than him. So, I defied everybody and married him in 1929 at the church here.
Tragedy
You lived happily ever after.
No, I didn’t. We started buying a house on mortgage over at Bookham. We moved there and I had a child. We were married on Boxing Day 1929 and then we had a baby in October 1930. He was drowned in October 1935.
I had septicaemia and purple fever when he was born. I was rushed off to Guildford Hospital and my mother had the baby who was as healthy as a baby could ever be. I was in hospital and they did all sorts of things to me. I had septicaemia and purple fever and they couldn’t stitch me or anything. I was torn and I was there six weeks. I came out the week before Christmas. There was one doctor there and he was absolutely an angel to me. He worked on me no end and one night at twelve o’clock he came to see me. I didn’t know what was happening. Everything was all haywire. He came to see me and he stopped with me with right round to six o’clock the next morning.
I had a tube in my leg – my knee – there and where I had a tube it drained all this filth and stuff out of me and I know afterwards when I found out my husband was sitting by the telephone all night. They didn’t expect me to get through the night. But still I got through and he said you’ve got that baby to fight for and all that sort of thing.
I wanted a boy and I had my wish, I had a boy. Now I said I want a little girl and they said don’t you ever attempt another child Mrs Sayers because you will go and leave the baby here most probably. So, I said to my husband when I got back and had Charles that was a different thing. I had five years of bliss with him and he was a lovely boy, he really was beautiful.
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EV: At this point Mrs Sayers broke down. The subsequent tale was that Mr Sayers was going out to work in Bookham and took the child with him. When he returned in the evening the child wasn’t with him. Mrs Sayers said, where is he? Where’s Charles? He said has he not come home? He ran ahead.
The house next door to where they lived was empty and he was used to running through the garden to his own garden. His father had seen him run through this empty garden but he never arrived home. So, a huge child hunt was on most of the night. At ten o’clock the next morning Mr Sayers found his son down a drain. The authorities had removed a manhole cover to inspect water and had not put it back. The child fell in and drowned in six feet of water and fractured his skull en route so that he was not able to call for help.
This great tragedy completely transformed Mrs Sayers’ life. She decided to leave her husband and go to New Zealand. Her husband was terribly distressed at this and said wherever she went he would follow her. So, in order improve himself he said he would go to Reigate College for three years where he gained several degrees which made him a master plumber. From then on, he began to climb professionally until in the end he ended up working for a ministry, being subsequently sent to Salisbury, Jamaica and Nottingham.
Eventually Mrs Sayers bought a house in Leatherhead. In fact, she had two houses in Leatherhead by the end of Mr Sayers’ career. When he retired, they did everything she wanted to do like touring Scotland. She had the instructions of the tour on toilet paper rolled out. She rolled it out and as each part of the landscape came up, [we] never got lost once, she said with pride.
Mr Sayers died in 1979 [1980] after six small heart attacks. She now lives alone in Magazine Place in a very nice little house with her niece who lives at the end of the road, a Mrs Strickland. She is very much a lively lady and belies her 80 years. In fact, she looks about 60. She claims she has a concertina in her attic, having taught herself how to play when her brother was so excelling in the band in Leatherhead. She is obviously a very good gardener. She makes toys out of old coats – long eared dogs and cats which she sells at Victoria House. She has a photograph of her husband in the china cabinet and one of her sons is in another cupboard but she dared not bring it out to look.
Alexandra Kate Brewer – 1911 census – was baptised Esther Alexandra Kate Brewer in September 1902. Her death was registered in August 1990 in Lichfield. Her husband Arthur Ernest Sayers’ mother died when he was very young. His stepmother Harriet Jelley was a witness at their marriage in the parish church Leatherhead in 1929.