Spain

NANCY SPAIN (1917 - 1964)

The colourful journalist and broadcaster spent much of her youth at 7 Tankerville Place in Jesmond, Newcastle. Her father was Lieutenant-Colonel Spain, a freeman of Newcastle and a prominent figure in local military and antiquarian affairs. He was something of a writer himself and appeared in a number of radio plays. He also used to broadcast commentaries on Newcastle United games. Nancy played tennis at the Portland Park club near St George's in Jesmond. This was known as 'the Lord's' as opposed to 'the Commons' along Osborne Road. As a child, Nancy remembered a heat-wave at Tarset in the North Tyne valley and pulling peaches from a garden at Hesleyside. She also recalls the Moorcock Inn and Greystead Rectory, where Basil Bunting (q.v.) was to live later. Nancy was a strong girl and remembers pushing the future eminent journalist Bill Hardcastle into the Bull Park lake on Town Moor, where she used to learn to ride at five shillings an hour 'with other little bourgeois tots'. These enjoyments were all taking place near to where Rosamond Lehmann (q.v.) was being depressed in Sydenham Terrace. Nancy considered that she and her sister Liz had a jolly nice childhood.

Nancy went to Roedean (a family tradition) where Nancy began wearing 'mannish' clothes, and also developed the beautiful speaking voice which stood her in such good stead in her eventual media career. She played lacrosse for Northumberland and Durham, and hockey for the North of England, as well as acting on BBC radio in the Bridge Street studios, where she took over the star parts vacated by Esther McCracken (q.v.). During the war Nancy served in the WRNS on Tyneside, a period covered in her book Thank you, Nelson.

Nancy Spain became a celebrated columnist for the Daily Express, She and the News of the World in the 1950s and '60s and made many radio broadcasts, particularly on Woman's Hour. She later appeared on Juke Box Jury, though her inconsequential approach was by now unsuited to the times. Often in the news, and tempted to marry to seem 'respectable' she lived openly with the editor of She, Joan Werner Laurie, and was a friend of the famous, including Noel Coward and Marlene Dietrich. Her death in a light aeroplane crash on her way to the Grand National seemed almost an appropriate end to a flamboyant and high-profile career. Nancy is buried with her father in the church at Horsley, Northumberland. Noel Coward summed up: 'It is cruel that all that gaiety, intelligence and vitality should be snuffed out when so many bores and horrors are left living.'

As well as her books of memoirs, including Why I'm Not a Millionaire (1956), Nancy wrote a biography of Mrs Beeton (an ancestor) and a series of breezily amusing detective novels including Poison for Teacher. This is set in the wickedly-named girls' school Radcliff Hall, and has characters like the Reverend Partick-Thistle. Like Roedean, the school is set on the Sussex coast. Other novels in the series include Poison in Play; Death before Wicket, Murder - Bless It and Death Goes on Skis. Cinderella Goes to the Morgue (1950) is set in Newcastle and revolves round a pantomime at the Theatre Royal, a plan of which is inside the front and back cover.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
NANCY SPAIN (1917 - 1964) The colourful journalist and broadcaster spent much of her youth at 7 Tankerville Place in Jesmond, Newcastle. Her father was Lieutenant-Colonel Spain, a freeman of Newcastle and a prominent figure in local military and antiquarian affairs. He was something of a writer himself and appeared in a number of radio plays. He also used to broadcast commentaries on Newcastle United games. Nancy played tennis at the Portland Park club near St George's in Jesmond. This was known as 'the Lord's' as opposed to 'the Commons' along Osborne Road. As a child, Nancy remembered a heat-wave at Tarset in the North Tyne valley and pulling peaches from a garden at Hesleyside. She also recalls the Moorcock Inn and Greystead Rectory, where Basil Bunting (q.v.) was to live later. Nancy was a strong girl and remembers pushing the future eminent journalist Bill Hardcastle into the Bull Park lake on Town Moor, where she used to learn to ride at five shillings an hour 'with other little bourgeois tots'. These enjoyments were all taking place near to where Rosamond Lehmann (q.v.) was being depressed in Sydenham Terrace. Nancy considered that she and her sister Liz had a jolly nice childhood. Nancy went to Roedean (a family tradition) where Nancy began wearing 'mannish' clothes, and also developed the beautiful speaking voice which stood her in such good stead in her eventual media career. She played lacrosse for Northumberland and Durham, and hockey for the North of England, as well as acting on BBC radio in the Bridge Street studios, where she took over the star parts vacated by Esther McCracken (q.v.). During the war Nancy served in the WRNS on Tyneside, a period covered in her book Thank you, Nelson. Nancy Spain became a celebrated columnist for the Daily Express, She and the News of the World in the 1950s and '60s and made many radio broadcasts, particularly on Woman's Hour. She later appeared on Juke Box Jury, though her inconsequential approach was by now unsuited to the times. Often in the news, and tempted to marry to seem 'respectable' she lived openly with the editor of She, Joan Werner Laurie, and was a friend of the famous, including Noel Coward and Marlene Dietrich. Her death in a light aeroplane crash on her way to the Grand National seemed almost an appropriate end to a flamboyant and high-profile career. Nancy is buried with her father in the church at Horsley, Northumberland. Noel Coward summed up: 'It is cruel that all that gaiety, intelligence and vitality should be snuffed out when so many bores and horrors are left living.' As well as her books of memoirs, including Why I'm Not a Millionaire (1956), Nancy wrote a biography of Mrs Beeton (an ancestor) and a series of breezily amusing detective novels including Poison for Teacher. This is set in the wickedly-named girls' school Radcliff Hall, and has characters like the Reverend Partick-Thistle. Like Roedean, the school is set on the Sussex coast. Other novels in the series include Poison in Play; Death before Wicket, Murder - Bless It and Death Goes on Skis. Cinderella Goes to the Morgue (1950) is set in Newcastle and revolves round a pantomime at the Theatre Royal, a plan of which is inside the front and back cover.
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