Originally from the town of Huddersfield in Yorkshire, Margaret’s formative years were spent in the fifties with her brother, mother, and father. As a teenager with an insatiable curiosity and a thirst for adventure, she set off to Aberystwyth, driven by her early love for geography and mountains in particular, a passion which has remained with her all her life. Most Read on Euro Weekly News She pursued her studies in Aberystwyth and, serendipitously, met her husband at a conference.
The love for geography seems to be a family trait, as one of her granddaughters is now following in her footsteps, having just completed her finals. Gerald and Margaret were married in 1968 and spent much of their married life living in Milton Keynes, where Gerald was a research fellow at the open university. Margaret, already a wife and mother, also enjoyed working at the open university on a part-time basis.
Here, she taught social sciences. She explained, “I just loved being an educator, especially to people who did not necessarily have an academic background but a keen desire to learn and understand more about the world they lived in”. Her work also led to her teaching inmates at the notorious Wormwood Scrubs prison from within their individual prison cells.
Asked if this had made her nervous, she said, “There was only one prisoner that I was a little scared of. For the most part, I enjoyed it as I represented a lifeline and a hope for normality and a future.” Margaret and Gerald we.