Joyce Nicholson is remembered as a major benefactor to the Arnside Educational Insitute and for her varied contributions to village life.
Early years
Joyce Marie Nicholson was born in Bolton on 5th February 1915. Her parents, Frederick and Nellie(nee Mason) both belonged to Bolton business families. Joyce attended Bolton High School for Girls in the early 1930's.
In1933 she went to Edinburgh and after three years at Atholl Cresent College qualified as a Domestic Science teacher.
After qualifying as a teacher Miss Nicholson had several temporary jobs in Lancashire and Suffolk.
In July 1937 she took a post as a Domestic Science teacher at Smith Street School in Oldham. With war threatening, she trained as an A.R.P. warden and in canteen work.
She taught cookery,dressmaking and first aid at night school and did emergency cooking after bombing raids in Oldham and Stretford.
At the end of 1941 Miss Nicholson gave up her teaching job to help her father manage his wholesale bakery business in Bolton.
Inglemere Hotel
in June 1943 she came to Arnside for a short holiday with her parents and stayed at the Inglemere Hotel which was up for sale. In September 1943 the Nicholson family bought the Inglemere Hotel.
The family successfully built up the hotel business despite wartime difficulties and the post-war austerity.
Joyce Nicholson ran a riding school at the Inglemere for a few years in the mid 1940s.
She also found time to be a member of Arnside Players dramatic society and acted in and produced plays from 1949 until 1956.
After the death of her parents in the early fifties Joyce Nicholson managed the hotel turned her hand to many aspects of business.
When the hotel got a licence she constructed and decorated the new Moorish Bar.
She organised the Christmas parties for guests and even sculpted the table decorations.
In1968 she decided to retire and she sold the Inglemere as a going concern. The hotel had been in the hands of the Nicholson family for exactly 25 years.
Later years
In 1968 Miss Nicholson moved into her penthouse flat "Wycherley" with its fine views over the Inglemere Hotel. The famous bronze elephant which used to guard the door now stood on the parapet of the flat.
New owners sold the hotel in 1975 it was demolished to make way for flats and bungalows and Millom Court.
Joyce Nicholson now had time for foreign travel and the various arts and crafts at which she was proficient. She embroidered tapestries,painted pictures made clay models and wrote verse. She even wrote an autobiographical novel "The Rainbows's Promise" which she hoped to have published.
Another of her hobbies was gardening and for many years she helped to maintain the gardens of elderly people who were not as fit as she was.
Joyce Nicholson died on 16th January 2000. She had lived in Arnside for 56 years and in her will she left a most generous bequest to the Arnside Educational Institute.
Some of her poems and other writings can be found in the archive.