Mary Mackie

Mary Mackie (née Kathleen Mary Whitlam, born early 1940s) is an English writer of over 70 fiction and non-fiction books since 1971. Work of hers has been translated into 20 languages. She is known especially for light-hearted accounts of life looking after a country house for the National Trust. Life Mary Mackie was born in Lincoln during the Second World War, as the older daughter of Charles William Edward Whitlam, and his wife Kathleen. The family lived on Carholme Road until 1959 when they moved to North Hykeham, south of the city. Mary began writing stories, poems and playlets (unpublished) at the age of eight. She was educated at St Faith's Primary and Junior School and Lincoln Christ's Hospital High School, leaving at 16 with six "0" levels. She worked for a time as an accounts clerk with an insurance company. Later, she joined the Local WRAF and worked in the Accounts section at RAF Waddington, where she met her future husband. Early in her marriage to RAF Sgt Christopher Mackie, Mary and her family spent some time stationed at RAF Gatow, in Berlin (a city then still divided by the Wall), and later in West Germany, where she wrote her first full-length novel. She was first published in 1971. Chris retired from the RAF as a warrant officer and they settled into civilian life near Lincoln. Mary Mackie now lives at Heacham near Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast of England. Her husband had been evacuated there during the Second World War, at the age of 10, and they returned to the village in 1990. The couple had two sons and there are now four grandchildren. Mary Mackie continues to write. Her husband, a keen amateur archaeologist, was associated from its inception in 1996 with the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project. Mackie's biography of him, Chris, appeared in 2013. He died in August 2014.