Chichester centenarian passes away two days after 100th birthday

Marjorie Burden, née Heather, was born on February 13, 1920, in Fishbourne and grew up in the village in a house next to the level crossing where her father was a signalman.

At the age of ten she won a scholarship to attend Chichester High School for Girls and she met her future husband, Frank Burden, a keen athlete and pupil at Chichester High School for Boys, at one of the Whitsun Monday sports events when they were both 16.

Marjorie and Frank married in 1941, before Frank was called up and shipped off to Burma with the ‘Forgotten Army’ during the Second World War.

Before the war, Marjorie taught at a school in Shipley, near Horsham where her first pay packet was £7 7s 3d a month.

She commuted the 27 miles back to Fishbourne every weekend by bicycle – over 27 miles each way – to see her parents and Frank, but once the war started she took a job closer to home at a school in Westloats Lane, Bognor Regis.

She had a large class of over 40 and each lunch hour had to put up folding beds for the younger children to have an afternoon nap, then put them away again after school.

During the war she also volunteered with the fire service and did watch room duty at Chichester fire station on the corner of Market Avenue and Caledonian Road.

When the fire service learned Marjorie was a teacher, she was also asked to train new recruits, teaching them what she had previously learned.

After Frank returned from Burma, the couple made their home in Southgate, Chichester, and later moved to Fishbourne Road, Fishbourne, opposite the Woolpack Inn, and then Whyke Road, Chichester, in the 1960s.

Marjorie and Frank had four children – Penny, Paula, Jocelyn and Jeremy – and when the youngest was about four years old, Marjorie began supply teaching, mainly at Lancastrian Infants School but also at other schools in the area.

While living in Fishbourne the Roman palace was discovered in the field behind the Burden’s house.

Marjorie also became secretary of the Fishbourne Church parochial council, a post she held for about 30 years.

When her daughters joined the Girl Guides, Marjorie started helping with the 3rd Chichester Brownie Guides in Whyke Lane, first as Tawny Owl, then as Brown Owl.

After she retired, she was still involved with the movement through the Trefoil Guild.

Marjorie also helped and was a committee member of the local Multiple Sclerosis Society for many years and joined the Inner Wheel in the 1960s when Frank, who was running the building company Frederick Hill Ltd, joined the Rotary Club.

After their children grew up, Marjorie and Frank moved to Runcton where they had a large garden and kept donkeys which were the star attraction when small Christmas carol concerts were held in the stable for many years.

In their 80s, Marjorie and Frank moved to a smaller house in Summersdale and celebrated their platinum wedding anniversary in 2011.

Marjorie regularly hosted large family Sunday lunches; her roast lamb, sherry trifles and apple crumbles were legendary.

Sadly, Marjorie and Frank’s youngest daughter Jocelyn died in 2011, followed by Frank in 2013.

Marjorie had hip replacement surgery at the age of 94, but her mobility did not improve enough for her to be independent so she moved to Lordington Park Residential Care Home, in Lordington, where she remained for the last five years of her life.

Marjorie’s health declined rapidly at the start of February and she was unconscious on her 100th birthday on February 13, when her children, Penny, Paula and Jeremy, were by her side.

She passed away two days later.

Marjorie leaves three surviving children, ten grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.