W HEN JACKIE GURNEY was a young child she loved to sit and watch her Nan hand-stitch gloves but never for a moment thought that one day she would inherit her Nan's talent for sewing, which would lead to her becoming a familiar face in Bideford town centre.

"Nan used to work from home sewing gloves and I was always fascinated watching her at work," said Jackie, 61.

When Jackie was about seven her mum bought her a second hand pram for her doll and gave her one of her old dresses to refurbish the pram. "I remember quite vividly cutting up the dress and sewing a hood and apron for the pram and being really pleased with what I made," she said.

Jackie's natural sewing ability was quickly recognised by Mrs Hotton, her needlework teacher, and was always singled out as the best at sewing in her class. Prior to leaving school Jackie was summoned to the head teacher's office. "The head and Mrs Hotton tried to encourage me to go on to college and study to become a needlework teacher. I would have loved to have been a teacher but unfortunately it was never an option for me because there were six children in our family and my family could not afford for me to continue in education so I had to go straight to work when I left school at 15," said Jackie.

With a first class reference from Mrs Hotton, Jackie had no trouble finding work and started immediately in the sewing room of a local department store. As well as training as a dressmaker and learning more of the intricacies of sewing Jackie made friends with Linnie, another trainee seamstress and the pair have remained friends to this day.

Jackie and Linnie always looked forward to weekends when they would attend the local dances in their handmade dresses. "We would usually buy a yard of fabric on Friday afternoon, spend all day Saturday stitching and our dresses would be ready that evening for our night out," recalled Jackie.

When Jackie was 17 she went on her first holiday to Bognor Regis without her parents and had a holiday romance with Mick Gurney. The romance sustained a long-distance relationship of 60 miles apart for five years until they decided to get married. Jackie made her own wedding dress and told Linnie that she could be bridesmaid providing she made her own dress and Linnie was happy to oblige.

Shortly after Jackie and Mick wed they decided to leave Surrey and move to Cornwall. "We had a couple of holidays there and loved the area. On one particular holiday, we were stuck in an awful traffic jam on the way home. Mick was getting frustrated and said, if we lived here we wouldn't have to put up with traffic jams so I said, okay, let's move," said Jackie.

They returned the following weekend, put a deposit on a house and moved to Truro a few weeks later. Jackie found a job in the sewing room at Treliske Hospital making staff uniforms and curtains and repairing all the hospital's linen. She loved working at the hospital but when her first child, David, arrived quickly followed by daughter Laura, Jackie gave up working to become a full-time mum. She didn't stop sewing however and continued stitching. "I made the children's clothes because with only Mick's income it was much cheaper to make clothes," she said.

Eight years after moving to Truro, Mick was transferred to Portsmouth where he worked for seven years before the family returned to Surrey to care for Mick's dad following the death of his wife. When Mick's dad met a new lady friend, with whom he later set up home, Jackie and Mick decided to return to the West Country and moved to Northam in 1988.

Mick bought and renovated a house to sell and soon his work as a builder was in demand. With Mick working and the children happily settled in school, Jackie responded to an advert she saw in the window of Maid Marian's sewing shop in Allhalland Street, Bideford.

"I met Marian and told her I would be happy to do some part-time work and do some work from home to fit in with the children," she said. Jackie never dreamed that 10 years later she would still be working for Marian and she most certainly never thought that one day she would end up buying the business. "When Marian decided to retire she suggested I buy it. I wasn't really keen because at 50, I really didn't want the hassle of running my own business."

She did, however, have a change of heart and took over Maid Marian's 10 years ago. As the business started to grow Jackie realised she needed extra help to keep on top of things and she didn't have far to look when her daughter Laura decided to work alongside mum. "Like myself and Nan, Laura also had a natural flair when it came to sewing but she had no real interest in it until about eight years ago so I started passing all my skills on to her and now she is a fantastic dress maker herself."

Laura's stitching may be of a high standard but she will not be making her own wedding dress when she marries her fiancé, Damien, in the Dominican Republic in April this year. Although Laura bought her dress mum has had to alter it dramatically. "The dress Laura fell in love with and bought was a size 14 and as she is only a size 8 I had to strip the dress apart and re-stitch it to fit," said Jackie.

Although Jackie has been sewing all her life she never finds the time to make things for herself or her home and even Mick has to sew his own buttons, as she simply does not have time.

She has, however, made a dress for her holiday in the Dominican Republic when she attends Laura's wedding and if Nan is looking down on Jackie and Laura she will no doubt be immensely proud of her granddaughter and great granddaughter who have inherited her own gift of sewing.