Here you are Verne! Isn't Google marvellous :-)

http://clainescanna.co.uk/fromaworcesterallotment/?tag=markery

Markery is another name for Good King Henry (Chenopodium bonus henricus)

Or poor man's asparagus/spinach - apparently originally eaten frequently in Lincolnshire, grows anywhere, spurned by sheep and cattle...

thanks to beattie and bamboo, though i am frankly baffled how people manage to get such results from google?

i googled markery and was directed to page after page of tatooists and other rude stuff and markery plant had no result whatever!

this sort of thing happens frequently to me so i guess either my computer doesn't like me or google has something against me...

granfather hailed from yorkshire and after having an altercation with his lordship's right hand man could not work in mining any more so worked as a wagonner north of lincoln until he found a suitable smallholding near newark in nottinghamshire.

i will enquire at my local garden centre about finding some plants, hopefully they will be happy in a pot or alongside the bluebells in our postage stamp front garden (the sun is better there) and hope my wife doesn't kill them off as she often does. i am sure my enquiry about growing what is now classed as a weed will cause much merriment...
thanks again

My first attempt at Googling wasn't successful either, Verne, as "markery" is a valid word in Polish. Google Translate told me that it means "marker pen". And there were lots of pages with references to felt tip pens. But I selected "pages from the UK" from a menu on the left - and up popped the website with the reference I gave you.

I've seen Good King Henry in an alternative veg garden, but it was a long time ago.

I can't remember how I found it - markery produced nonsense, as you say, but I put in 'poor man's spinach' instead (just a stab in the dark) and up it came, though its really poor man's asparagus.