My grandfather, James (Jim) Jim Mackley, was born in Langar on May 24th 1879.
When he was almost 17 he went as an apprentice to his Uncle Edward (Ned) Hornbuckle at Barkestone. He managed the business for Mrs Gilbert, widow. They all lived in the small house in front of the smithy (henceforth “Wright’s house”). When Mrs Gilbert died (around 1906/07) Ned took over the business with Jim as partner. Ned died in 1910, when Jim became sole owner of the business. Mr and Mrs Barlow were tenants of the bigger house.
In 1905, Jim married Edith Stevens, daughter of William Stevens, a Barkestone joiner.
They had 5 children: Constance Ellen (Nellie) 1906, Annie (Nancy) 1910, William Hugh 4/11/11, Edith 1916 and George 1919. Jim taught his two sons the trade. Hugh went into business in Wymeswold in 1935. On Jim’s death, George was discharged from the army to carry on the business.
When they were first married, Jim lived in a cottage up Stevens’ yard. They moved to “Wright’s house” after Mrs Gilbert died. Uncle Ned carried on living there until he died in 1910. Jim was the main beneficiary of Ned’s will. When the bigger house became available (about 1915) Jim bought the whole property including “Wright’s house”, the forge, gardens, orchards and the paddock (called “the Folly”) – 2 acres on Plungar lane for about £400. (The property was sold in the early sixties for £2500.)
Jim was churchwarden from 1922-31. He was a school manager from 1913 until his death and he wound the school clock up throughout that period.
He was blacksmith to Barkestone, Plungar and Redmile and outlying farms.
The main work consisted of shoeing horses and repairing and making farm implements including harrows and ploughs. The latter were hand ploughs with wooden shafts, called “Palfrey” ploughs after the Barkestone wheelwright who made them in co-operation with Jim.
Mr Palfrey lived next door to Stevens’. There were the following horses (approximately) in Barkestone in the twenties: 3 or 4 at Johnson’s at Jericho Farm; 4 at Rowbotham’s, Jericho Lane (later Musson’s – Fred’s father); 3 at Mrs Hornbuckle’s, just the other side of the church; 4 at Jack Kirk’s, Manor Farm; 2 at Poyser’s, the Green; 4 at Schofield’s, New Causeway; 4 at John Bonser Kirk’s, Main Street (later Calcraft’s); 1 at Stevens’, the joiner; 1 at Bill Hornbuckle’s, at the end of Main Street; 1 at Simpson’s, the grocer’s; 2 at Sam Hall’s, just the other side of the Chequers; 4 at Watchorn’s, Middle Street; 2 for Brewster’s wagonette, next to the school house. Jim said that Redmile was as good for trade as Barkestone and Plungar put together, so there would be in the region of 100 horses in the 3 parishes. He also shod 12 horses from Bolton’s on the other side of the wood (Branston parish).
John Poyser was the other wheelwright in the village latterly. The blacksmith made the hoops [tyres] ¾ to 1-inch smaller than the wheel. When heated, the metal expanded to fit round the wheel. The blacksmith then went round the wheel with a watering can to slack the hoops and tighten the joints.
When he first started, Jim worked from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday and 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. He NEVER worked Sundays. Most of the time that his son, Hugh, can remember he worked 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. (7 to 1 on Saturdays). In the early days he would have only Christmas Day off. Later he would have Good Friday, a day for Barkestone Feast and Boxing Day, but not (we think) Easter, Whit or August Mondays. He never had a week’s holiday. (The first week’s holiday Hugh had was in 1959.)
When he first went as an apprentice, Jim was paid 1 shilling a week, plus board. After he had served his apprenticeship, he was paid 10 shillings a week plus board and when he married in 1905, he was paid a guinea a week (a labourer at the time would be paid 15 shillings). The price of shoeing in 1896 was 2s/8d a set. When Jim became owner he put up the price to 3/- a set. That stayed the same until the outbreak of war when it gradually went up to 11/-. After the war it gradually went down to 6/- a set, where it remained until the outbreak of the next war. (In the early thirties Hugh worked for 1/- an hour.)
Hugh started to help his father while he was still at school, after school - not every day “but quite a lot” – Saturdays and school holidays. He started as an apprentice when he left Barkestone School (Standard 7) at 14. But in the 1930s when Hugh might have carried on working for him, there was a depression and not enough work for 2 men. Two farmers one in Barkestone and one in Plungar went bankrupt. Cars were also coming in. Hugh’s Uncle Herbert (Stevens) from Manchester gave him his first bicycle – a Rudge Whitworth – when he was 10.
Anecdotes
The vicar, Burnaby (?), made the New Causeway and wanted to continue it to Plungar on condition that the farmers would cart the materials, but no-one would do so.
Hugh’s great-grandfather Stevens gave the land in the corner of his garden for the Methodist chapel to be built.
Hugh (before his third birthday) went down to the cross roads to the Harby – Bottesford road to see the soldiers (yeomanry) in red coats marching from Melton to Belton to go to war. He asked his mother: “Which one is Kaiser Bill?”
In his seventies Mr Palfrey (retired wheelwright) had his housekeeper, Miss Bestwick, fill his pipe for him because he couldn’t see properly.
Ironmongers from Grantham, Melton or Nottingham supplied iron. One day Barker’s of Grantham came and their lorry broke down. Jim lent the driver his bike for him to go to Stathern to telephone.
If his wife was ill in the night Jim had to bike 5 miles to Bottesford to fetch the doctor, bike back and then bike back again the same night to fetch some medicine from the doctor’s. The doctor and medicine had to be paid for! The doctor travelled by motorbike (previously horse and cart).
Jim won the race at the 1919 peace celebrations at Barkestone for men over 40. It was held in Jack Kirk’s paddock up Plungar Lane.
Early in the 1920’s (before Hugh left school) Copes of Nottingham put a new bell in the school clock, but the hammer was too heavy. They went to Jim’s shop and hacksawed a bit off the hammer to make it lighter.
Hugh rang a muffled peal for George Cant, who was born in 1823, when he died in 1927.
Hugh married Margaret Robinson from Bottesford in 1936. Bill Simpson was his best man.
George married Betty Mayfield in 1945. Her father, William, was a churchwarden. Her brother, Sam, married Win Kirk, from Manor Farm in about 1940. Her brother, Norman, married Dorothy Simpson on 7 April 1958.