Joyce (Walker) Horsley

Ancestors

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Biography

Birth & Baptism 1917 Beverley

Joyce Walker was born 16 Sept 1917 in Minstermoorgate, Beverley.

She was the daughter of Doris Walker, often called Betsy. Like tens of thousands of children born that year, her parents were not married and her father was away at war Fortunately her mother and her grandparents were warm and welcoming.

A Father 1919 Beverley

Before the war was officially over, in 1919, her mother married John Acklam, an Air Mechanic, and Joyce's illegitimacy like tens of thousands of others, was generally forgotten, as her name became Joyce Walker Acklam.

A Schoolgirl in Beverley 1921-1931

The Acklam family was completed by the birth of a jolly brother, Bernard Acklam in 1922. By this time Joyce was already at school, a private, fee-paying school, but far from exclusive and not terribly old-fashioned. Joyce enjoyed school: the lessons as well as the other girls. She grew used to the regular and unexplained hymns: It was years before she discovered that "Peril on the Sea" was not a town even more lawless than Southend, or the point of the foreign Hymn "Genesis Exodus Leviticus and Numbers, Joshua, Joshua, Judges and Ruth . . . " Joyce was an intelligent girl and did well in most of her lessons, so it was no surprise that she passed her 11+ "scholarship" in 1928 and could have gone to the Girls High School.

High School or Pitman's College?

Her parents discussed it with each other, and with her. The cost of the books, uniform and sports kit was not very different from her present school and there were no school fees. But they would have to promise that she would stay at school until she was 16 and perhaps even 18 and they knew that a few clever Beverley Girls were already going on to teacher training or University. Surely it was best to keep these mysteries for her brother Bernard, while Joyce as a clever girl would be allowed to leave school at 13 and spend a year learning shorthand and book-keeping so that could start a well-paid job by the time she was 15. This largely ignored Joyce's abilities and interests - she was a natural academic and continued education as far as she was able for the rest of a long life. It also ignored Bernard's abilities and interests: the only academic subject which interested him was maths: he did not pass his 11+: His parents were right in thinking that he was intelligent but it was years after leaving school that he found himself driving a taxi and gradually building it into a fleet, which his descendants turned into the second biggest fleet of buses and coaches in East Yorkshire.

Teenage Friendships

Joyce Acklam was an attractive, intelligent and lively lass so she had many friends in her teenage years. Her closest friend in her early teens was Sheila? Hoggard who died of Tuberculosis while still very young. Joyce seemed to have been luckily immune: it was only 20 years later when her son David was given his BCG tester that the truth became clear. David reacted strongly, so the whole family was tested and all the boys reacted, with Joyce's reaction being the fiercest of all. Joyce had caught Tuberculosis from her friend but had rapidly overcome it, giving her and her children life-long immunity.

From School to Work

As Joyce and her parents had planned, she trained at Pitman's College and became employed as a shorthand typist and was employed in the pool working with sales representatives for Ranks Flour Mills who were John Acklam's employers. In effect they were secretaries rather than mere typists, preparing reports, double-entry book-keeping, and invoices and many of them married those Representatives and helped them rise through the Ranks management. In later years Joyce was sometimes exasperated by the conservative prejudices of these friends: "Anyone prepared to work hard could get a good job on good pay: Failure to do so showed idleness or fecklessness." They ignored their own incredible good luck: above average intelligence: finding the right job and the right spouse; working for an expanding company with a policy of promotion from within; avoiding serious illness or major accidents.

Start of WW2 1939

When World War Two began Ranks Flour rapidly began evacuating their Hull headquarters on an incredibly accurate assessment that Hull Docks would be a major target for German bombers: This proved true, in the whole of Britain only the London Dockland suffered as badly. John Acklam's warehouse was moved up the Humber to Selby and he went to live in Barlby nearby: Joyce Acklam's offices moved less far, to Hessle, and she was given living quarters nearby; ^[1] Joyce was lodged with the other "girls" working for Ranks Flour Mills distribution which had been moved out of the centre of Hull for the duration of the war. They remained friends for life, especially Mary Larder.

Marries Fred Horsley

Fred and Joyce married during his short leave on 1 Feb 1941 in Barlby near Selby, Yorkshire, where her parents were living as John had moved there to the wartime headquarters of Ranks Flour Mills. ^[2]

Sources

1. ↑

   1939 Register of England and Wales'

   Woodleigh, West Hill, [Hessle] Haltemprice, Yorkshire, England

   Head Mary J Larder Jan 21 1914 Single

   Doris M Mason (Wilson) May 28 1895 Single Shorthand Typist for miller goverment work

   Joice W Horsley Sep 16 1917 Single Shorthand Typist Milley Fire

   Barbara M Pether Sep 29 1916 Single Agricultural Assistant ? Standard (B B A)

2. ↑

   Barlby Marriage Register : 1 July 1941 :

   • Fred Horsley 33 bach, Mechanic RAF, of Holme Church La. Beverley son of George Arthur Horsley deceased.
   • Joyce Walker Acklam 23 spinster of Main St Barlby daughter of John Acklam, miller's foreman.

   by licence [Rev] Henry P Peacock -- both sign

   John Acklam & Arthur Powrie witnesses

   Marriage no 321

• Birth Certificate YN671211