Annie Mackley, known as Nancy, was born in Barkestone-le-Vale, Leicestershire, in 1910. She was the second daughter of James Mackley and his wife, Edith (née Stevens). James Mackley was the village blacksmith. When she was born, they lived in the small house near to the blacksmith’s shop, but, when she was four or five, the family moved to the large house adjoining it. She lived there for nearly all the rest of her life.
Edie and Nancy (right) bridesmaids at Hugh and Margaret’s wedding, outside their Barkestone house, January 1936
She will have gone to the local school at Barkestone, of which her father was a Governor.
I don’t know much about her early life. Her brother, Hugh, once told me that she was a healthy girl who enjoyed the outdoor life.
She trained as a seamstress. For all the time I knew her, she had a treadle Singer sewing-machine. I believe she was an accomplished dress-maker.
She was a bridesmaid at my parents’ wedding and also at both her sisters’ weddings.
Unknown, unknown, Ted, Nellie, Nancy, Grandma, Hugh
Alas, she was taken ill in her twenties. She went into hospital many times. The early diagnoses seemed to be of a stomach ulcer. As a child, I overheard various conversations. On one occasion, probably when she was in her early forties, the diagnosis was migraine, said to be common in the head, but rare in the stomach. Whatever it was, no satisfactory treatment was found and she never recovered.
The family lived together in Barkestone while they were all children. By the time her father died in 1942, only she, her mother and her youngest sister, Edie, were left there. However, George took over his father’s business and came back to live with them, both before he was married and for a few years thereafter: he and his wife, Betty, lived in the two rooms at the west end of the house. (They had the front door and the main staircase – neither of which were used very much after they left!) Edie stayed until she was married in 1949. But, from about 1949 onwards, Nancy lived there alone with her mother.
Nancy and her mother, outside the Barkestone house, 1950s
In the mid-1960s, Grandma became unable to cope with the big house. She and Nancy went to live with her sister, Edie, and her husband at Granby and the Barkestone house was sold.
Grandma, Nancy, Ted and Nelly, West End, c.1968
Auntie Nancy died in 1969.
Jim Mackley
July 2020
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