Marjorie Penn (25 Jun 1938 - 11 Apr 2022)

Wave you goodbye

❤️

In memory of a lovely lady.

What a wonderful lady. I shall deeply miss receiving Marjorie's letters xxx

In memory of Marjorie, a good friend with a kind heart and lovely smile.

I was very sorry and shocked to hear the news about Marjorie and extend sincere condolences from both my wife
Valerie and myself. I have a particular reason for remembering Marjorie Walker – as she was then - as one of the first people I met when I began my career as an Assistant Archivist at the City Archives in Nottingham’s South Sherwood St in 1964. Initially I became a lodger in a ‘hostel for professionals’ at Alexandra Court in Woodborough Road which was where she was already staying. We were equally surprised to discover we were both archivists – she an Assistant Archivist at the County Archives in High Pavement. There was a degree of confusion as the City Archivist was another ‘Miss Walker’ although considerably older!

I believe I replaced Marjorie as the Senior Assistant Archivist at the County in c 1968 and two years later I became County Archivist on the departure of Bill Serjeant. Marjorie also got to know my wife - another archivist who had replaced me at the City - so we all felt we had an especial bond.

After she had retired we all met frequently at Thoroton Society lectures and excursions and enjoyed her quiet sense of humour. In her professional capacity she contributed to some of the Society’s Record Series publications in the 1960s, for example transcribing 16th century household inventories listing the goods and chattels of deceased residents of the Southwell area. Later she carried out a great deal of voluntary work listing collections of archives both within and outside the archive repositories, especially a major project cataloguing Elizabeth Robinson’s family collection of both documents and artefacts.

The loss of her husband Peter at a comparatively young age was a great blow to her and her children, although she appeared to come through it with Yorkshire stoicism. I recall visiting her house on several occasions about some archival project and always remember the boat Peter was building in the back garden in various stages of construction. I wasn’t quite sure whether she was enamoured by it or not ?!

We were shocked to hear of her succumbing to cancer, but equally relieved that she initiually responded to treatment. Unfortunately in more recent years we hadn’t seen her for some time because of the Covid restrictions on meetings, etc.