JiM Mackley

Born in Wymeswold in 1939, Jim Mackley worked as a dole clerk, a manpower planner in Swaziland, a diplomat, a Whitehall civil servant and a Brussels bureaucrat in a public service career which spanned nearly four decades.

 

In his three autobiographical volumes, he documents life growing up in a quiet Leicestershire village immediately after the Second World War to the golden years of the late 1950s. He left Wymeswold in 1958 to study at the University of Manchester, and describes falling in love with everything French during a summer job in 1959. He set out for France the following year on a 600-mile bicycle journey to Besançon near the French border with Switzerland, before returning to Manchester to complete his degree in 1962. 

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In the third volume of his autobiography, Jim reflects on his life as a civil servant, the jobs he did, the people he met and the places where he lived and worked – Nottingham, Walsall, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Mbabane, London and Brussels. From his first-hand experience, the author gives an insight into the workings of Whitehall and Brussels in the last third of the twentieth century, as well as describing his travels to 27 countries in 3 continents.
 

Retiring in 2001, Jim Mackley is currently Chair of Skegness U3A (The University of the Third Age) and runs several groups. He is also an active member of other U3A groups, and was one of the contributors and editor to the volume entitled Skegness Through the Years,  written by members of the local  history group.