Edith Mackley (née Stevens)

My grandmother was born on 27 September 1882 at Barkestone-le-Vale, in the Vale of Belvoir, Leicestershire. Her name at birth was Edith Stevens.

Her father, William Stevens, was a joiner in the village. He had been born in 1850 and died in 1908. His parents were John Stevens (1803-1887) and Ann Kitchen (1812-1890). It can be noted therefore that Ann was 38 when William Stevens was born[1]. Edith’s mother was Mary Poyser (1851-1928). Poyser is a well-known name in Barkestone or at least it was when I was a child. [It is interesting to note that Mary’s father was Richard Poyzer (1808-1888), while his father’s name was Edward Spyzer.]

[1] While studying the family tree, I noticed that James Mackley’s mother (my great-grandmother) was also 38 when he was born. All eight of my great-great-grandparents on the Mackley side were born between 1802 and 1815

The only story I know about her early years is the following. As a teenager she went to People’s College, Nottingham, as, I believe, did my other grandmother and Jennifer, my wife. When I was a teenager, she told me that she learned French there and recited Congparteeletran adursuraidume. Years later, I worked this out as: Quand part-il le train? – A deux heures et demie. I think that was about all she learned at People’s College. She wasn’t there very long; she was homesick and ran away all along the bank of the Nottingham to Grantham canal back to Barkestone – seventeen miles away by road, considerably further along the meandering canal bank.

She married my grandfather, James Mackley on 24 July 1905. He worked for his uncle, Ned Hornbuckle, who was the village blacksmith and my grandfather took over from him when Ned died in 1910. When they were first married, they went to live in the smaller of the two houses in the property containing the blacksmith’s shop, two doors away from the house where she had been brought up. Nine or ten years after they were married, they went to live in the larger house.

The Property

As she spent most of her life at this property, it might be worthwhile to describe it in some more detail. The houses stood at the side of the road leading from the church and school to Belvoir castle, near the junction with the road which went from Plungar to Redmile. It was a stone-built two-storey construction, for the most part only one room wide. The stone was yellow. I learned in the late eighties that it had once been a public house- the King William IV – though my father who was born there did not know that, until I told him.

I only went in the small house once or twice, but visited my grandmother in the larger house on many occasions. There were three rooms on the ground floor. At the eastern end, adjoining the smaller house, was the living room. That had a large black-leaded fireplace with an oven at one end. There was a tall red chair on the south side of it. The only memory I have of my grandfather is of him sitting in that chair. There was my Auntie Nancy’s treadle sewing-machine and a sofa alongside it. The door was on the same wall almost in the corner. A three-foot wall clock hung on the wall opposite the fireplace. The window was opposite the door. The main table was under the window, but placed so that there was room for chairs all round it.

I remember, in particular, having Christmas dinner seated at that table. Even though there would probably be eight of us, we still had chicken, rather than turkey. There was always a discussion about who would have the wishbone; as the only child, I was always allowed to pull it and ‘make a wish’. Afterwards, there would be home-made Christmas pudding, which was supposed to have a silver threepenny bit or sixpence (inflation!) hidden in it. Mysteriously, this always seemed to land up on my plate.

Between the living room and the back door there was a scullery. There was a partition between this and the living room. This had glass panels just below the ceiling, which provided some natural light to the scullery. Being a small boy, I spent as little time as possible in the scullery, but I believe it had a sink and some sort of cooking ring.

A short corridor led from the scullery to the best room. I remember this as a large room, with a window overlooking the lawn and garden. At least when we were there – we were visitors! – we went there for afternoon tea and spent the evenings there. There was a large table in the middle of the room. My grandmother was a fantastic pastry-cook. Her speciality – among many others – was Congress tarts, which I, annoyingly, insisted on calling ‘concrete’ tarts. There was a fireplace on the east wall and a piano on the west wall.

This best room had a second door, which led into a small hall-way. The main entrance door (from the garden) led into this hall-way. Opposite the entrance door was the larder and at the side of it the main staircase. Then at the west end of the house was another living-room, with a window looking on to the road. I don’t remember this room being used very much, apart from when my Uncle George and Auntie Betty lived there when they were first married in 1946.

There were four bedrooms, but no bathroom or toilet. When I stayed, I slept in the small bedroom at the back of the house over the scullery. In order to get there one used the back stairs which were accessed through a door in the corner of the scullery. Electricity had been connected downstairs, but not upstairs. So one lit a white candle in a blue candle-holder and went upstairs to bed. There was a wash-stand in each bedroom and a chamber-pot under the bed.

That was the room where Father Christmas usually came to me. He always filled my stocking (or rather my mother’s stocking) and there was always an orange in the bottom. (My father said there was always an orange in his Christmas stocking too.) It was also the room, where I used to worry about the wolves coming from Belvoir woods to get me! (There were no woods anywhere near Wymeswold, where I lived.)

Sketch map of Barkestone Property[1] [1] Not to scale; I can’t remember the layout of the south end of the property behind the gardens.

Outside the backdoor was a small paved courtyard. On the left of this stood a freshwater tank. Opposite the backdoor were two or three outhouses, including a coalhouse. The lavatory, which I think was made of wood, stood at the west of these. The pan was emptied every week or so. Newspapers were cut into strips and put on a hook on the wall.

To the west of the lavatory was a small garden. It was surrounded by a privet hedge. It was mostly lawn, but had flower beds all around, including the front border. There was an archway out of the garden leading to the main entrance door.

The rest of the property was huge. The main double gate at the west of the house led into a large open area. In the southwestern corner of this stood a number of sturdy brick-built outhouses. I rarely went in them. The blacksmith’s shop stood in the south east corner of this area. It had an open shoeing area and a dark workshop. To the south of all this were three large parallel vegetable gardens, with a wall between the central one and the one to the west. At the other end of the central garden was an orchard which provided an abundant supply of pearmain eating apples and Bramley cooking apples. Towards the bottom of the orchard, a hundred yards or more from the back door, was the pump. This was the only source of drinking water. It often seemed not to be working very well. Finally, there was a large paddock behind the orchard and along the edge of the Plungar Road, which was usually rented out to a local farmer.

Back to the story!

My grandmother had five children: Constance Ellen (Nellie) born in 1906, Annie (Nancy) 1910, William Hugh, 1911, Edith Mary, 1916 and George, 1919 [3]. I know very little else about the 37 years of her married life.

[3] I have written separately about Nellie and Nancy and will be writing about my father, Hugh.

James and Edith Mackley, c.1942

My grandfather died in 1942, so, for all the time I can remember, she was a widow. She took her widowed status very seriously and nearly always dressed in navy blue, black or purple. On some occasions she would worry that something she had bought was too bright. She worried a lot about all sorts of things. My Auntie Nancy used to say to her: “Stop worriting, Mother!”

She was not very tall and in later years grew quite plump and walked with a stick. She had very soft skin and a clear complexion. I was told this was because she never wore make-up. She was blind in one eye: she had reversible spectacles. When she wanted to read something she would take off her distance glasses, turn them round and look through the other lens, which was prescribed for reading. She did a lot of knitting. When I was a teenager, she used to knit me socks for Christmas. I remember having light blue, yellow and black pairs. My Uncle George asked me not to ask for black ones again, as she couldn’t see the wool very well.

With Nancy (left) outside the Barkestone house, 1950s;

the scullery wall is on the right of the photo

We visited her several times a year. We used to get a Trent number 66 bus from Wymeswold to Nottingham, usually into the bus station in Huntingdon Street. Sometimes we would get off at Trent Bridge and pick up the number 22 Barton’s bus there. In the early days, the Barton’s bus went through Barkestone to Redmile, but later it stopped at Plungar church. We then had to connect with another Barton’s bus coming from Melton Mowbray. When the weather was not too bad, we walked the mile from Plungar to Barkestone.

This article is supposed to be about my grandmother and not Barkestone. However, there are a couple of points I would like to make. My Uncle George said that the Vale of Belvoir and Barkestone in particular was “God’s own country”. His wife, Auntie Betty, said it was “a mucky hole”. Both were right and for the same reason. The land was very rich and fertile; the grass was luxuriant. There were several farmers in Barkestone who had fields outside the village, where they kept their cows. They paraded their cows through the village streets twice a day, when they brought them in for milking.

Another thing which sticks in my mind is the circular yellow and black road sign on the wall opposite my grandma’s living room window, which advertised “Ovum for Poultry”. This sign declared that this was indeed Barkestone-le-Vale and that it was 17 miles from Nottingham, 17 miles from Leicester and 117 miles from London.

My grandmother came to stay with us in Wymeswold sometimes. During the war and for several years after the war, meat and meat products were rationed. This meant that it was illegal to obtain such products direct from the farmers. However, sometime in the late forties, a farmer had given my father a side of bacon. This had been put into storage in the pantry. Unfortunately the bacon had gone bad and had maggots in it. One Saturday afternoon, when my grandma was staying with us, I was packed off to play with one of my friends and my father and grandmother laid the side of bacon on the kitchen table to try to rescue some of the bacon, which was, of course, a scarce commodity. Someone knocked at the back door, while the bacon was spread out on the table. There was a great panic, because they thought it was the police coming round to check on them. (It wasn’t!)

My grandma taught me and my friend Brian to knit – we knitted ties for our teddy bears. We were quite good at it. The wool my grandma gave us to knit with was of much better quality than the wool I was given at school a year or so later to knit a dishcloth.

Me (left) and Brian Bartram knitting, c.1948

After my Uncle George and Aunty Betty went to live at Plungar in the late forties, I used to stay with them rather than with my grandma, but I visited her from time to time. When I was in my teens I usually cycled there from Wymeswold. On one occasion she was staying with us in Wymeswold during the school summer holidays. I had cycled to school in Loughborough to go swimming in the school pool. (I can’t think that happened too often!) When I got home my grandmother said that, if she had known, she would have asked me to bring something from the chemists in Loughborough. I promptly got on my bike and went to get it.

As she got older she became rather frail. She and Auntie Nancy went to live with her youngest daughter, Edie, and her husband Frank and their daughter, Ann, in Granby, about three miles from Barkestone. The property at Barkestone was sold for, I believe, about £2000. My grandmother was no better off, because the Government stopped her National Assistance payment.

Granby, late 1960s

From time to time she went to stay with her eldest daughter, Nellie in Surrey. She died there on 2 December, 1969. She had devoted her later years to the care of her second daughter, Nancy, who had been in poor health for many years. My father said that, after Nancy died earlier in 1969, his mother had nothing more to live for.