Barbara Jackson - Wonderful Woman No. 17

Barbara Jackson - 1936-2008
British Actress and Singer

Born in industrial Salford in the north of England, Barbara started performing in local amateur dramatics groups from an early age. She always longed for life as a professional entertainer and to travel. At the age of 21, after having been working as a machinist for a local mill, Barbara's talent on stage was finally spotted. She became a professional singer and actress and enjoyed a forty year career in show business.

Barbara travelled across the country in various shows. She also spent some time working in the U.S.A. in an Old Time Music Hall production. She made countless appearances on British television, including walking the cobbles of Coronation Street (which was not unlike the Salford streets of where she had grown-up). She also appeared at the London Palladium on more the one occasion, this was something she was immensely proud of.

Barbara Jackson was also my Great-Aunt.

She was a woman I always looked up to and admired. I, too, performed on stage from an early age, I was in the chorus line of my first pantomime at the age of five. I always wanted to be on stage, for that to be my career and I lapped up hearing stories of Aunty's adventures. I studied performing arts, much to the joy of Aunty (who had no children of her own), she lived in the Midlands at the time and I would often write to her and tell her what I had been learning about and what pieces I had performed. In my early twenties, I too fulfilled my ambition of becoming a professional actress. I spent some time touring the UK. Aunty kind of mentored me through my auditions and we spoke on the phone every Sunday, she would sip gin and tonic while I would tell her about the theatres and the cast and my performance. Sometimes, she would send little cards with notes of encouragement. She had retired some time before, I think she loved hearing about my life in show business and felt pleased to be able to give me some tutorship and encouragement, I also felt she was very proud of me.

She became very ill in the mid-2000s. She had always been such a glamorous woman and to see her frail and infirm, and losing her faculties was incredibly distressing.

At her funeral in 2008, we, her family and friends gave her a fitting tribute by singing There's No Business Like Show Business, I think she would have loved that.

Barbara Jackson, Aunty, was a wonderful woman and one I spent so much of my life in awe of and inspired by... and I miss her very much.