Tuesday 10th March 2026
My story...Margaret
Margaret, 94 and fondly known by the nickname Titch, lives at Emmaus House in Whitehaven. She told us of a life of love and adventure spent in the Lake District, from the close bond she shared with her parents to freewheeling adventures with her future husband and the joy she found with the Brownies
Tucked inside the pages of Margaret’s worn, black leatherbound Bible is a very special object – a four-leaved clover. Crumbling at the edges, it has lain here ever since her husband Sydney came across it while they were helping out at hay-time on her auntie’s farm as newlyweds. A rare and lucky find, the clover evokes memories of the many years they spent together. “We were married 60 years and had a good life, a happy life,” says Margaret.
In her room at Emmaus House, Margaret is surrounded by objects that hold precious memories. There’s a wooden cross made by Sydney, at the foot of which perches a tiny white dove from their daughter Janice’s wedding cake. Dotted along the shelves are beautiful wooden nativity figures given by her church and on the wall hangs a bell ornament from her very first Christmas 94 years ago. There’s also a watercolour of St John’s Crosscanonby, the 11th-century church she walked to every Sunday morning as girl alongside her father. To spend time with Margaret hearing the story of each object is to be enveloped by the love and kindness that has filled her life.
A Cumbrian lass born and bred, Margaret grew up in Crosby, a village some three miles from Maryport. An only child, Margaret was close to her parents. Their small cottage was lit with gas lamps and had sweeping views across the Solway. “I could lie in bed and look right out at the Scottish coast,” she recalls.
It was a contented childhood, albeit one disrupted by war, which broke out when she was seven. Margaret recalls air raid sirens and sheltering in the cellar of the local pub. “We’d hear the planes on their way to bomb Glasgow,” she says. “One night, it was very loud and we found out the next morning that Maryport had been bombed.”
During the war, her father worked at the local shipyard and ammunition depot before being transferred to the aerodrome at Silloth to work on Lancaster and Halifax bombers. The village welcomed evacuees from South Shields, and her mother took in a little girl called Nora. “I remember all she had was in a carrier bag,” says Margaret. “My mother clothed and cared for as if she were her own. When she had to go back after three years, she clung to Mum. She didn’t want to leave.”
Brownies and then Girl Guides were mainstays of her childhood, and in 1947 she was chosen to represent Cumbria at an international rally in London, marching along The Mall past Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.
Academically, Margaret excelled and earned a scholarship to the grammar school at Workington. She was still at school that when she met her future husband. Sydney was an apprentice painter and decorator, and in his spare time a keen cyclist. “He was into roadway racing and once said to me, ‘Why don’t you get a bike?’” Margaret wasn’t so keen, but Sydney was determined. “We used to go to the pictures every Thursday. One day, he asked if I would slip home with him first, saying he had something to show me in the shed...”
When Margaret got there, she discovered it was a tandem. With their bicycle made for two, the world was their oyster. “We’d go on picnics to Ennerdale and on a lovely, fine night we’d stay out and bike all round Lake Windermere.” Margaret nods towards the window, “On a clear day you can make out the fells. I often look out and think of Sydney and the rides we went on.”
After school, Margaret had ambitions of training as a nurse. However, it was not to be. “Mum suffered from poor health. One evening, I was sitting with Dad and he said, ‘I don’t know what I’ll do when you go away.’ That changed me.” Setting aside her plans, Margaret went to night school and learned shorthand typing, going on to work for a local provision merchants.
Margaret and Sydney married on 19th February 1955 and their daughter Janice was born in 1961. Margaret gave up work to become what she terms ‘a fully domesticated engineer’. The couple even had plans to adapt their tandem for family life with the addition of a sidecar, but the frame wasn’t strong enough.
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In her early thirties, Margaret was met with a devasting blow – the loss of both parents and then her father-in-the-law within a year. “My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and went into hospital in the December,” she recalls, “They told us nothing more could be done. I said, ‘if my mum’s going to die, I’m going to look after her.’ The doctor looked at me and said, ‘I think you’re very brave.’”
Margaret duly nursed her mother at home before she passed away the following January. Just five weeks later, her father suffered the first of series of strokes, eventually passing just before Christmas. Then, a fortnight later, Sydney’s father died suddenly.
Through this difficult time, and Margaret found herself leaning on her Christian faith. “I’ve always believed,” she says. “If you don’t have faith, what have you? We wouldn’t be able to sit here and look at the sky, the fields, the animals, the mountains if God hadn’t made it all. I thought to myself, ‘God is with me, He will look after me.’”
Margaret found God providing for her through her local community. “I didn’t want to go out,” she recalls. “My husband used to go to work and I’d close the door and that was it. It was horrible. But one day this lady came round to see me. She was the local commissioner with the Girl Guides. She got me into the Brownies and from there I became a Brownie leader and then the Brown Owl. I was responsible for organising pack holidays for Cumbria. The Brownies and I had some wonderful times.”
Margaret also served at the local church, leading the girls’ choir and taking on the role of church warden. In 1994, she was recognised for her services to the community with an invitation to the Royal Garden party at Buckingham Palace.
Having struggled with a heart condition, Sydney sadly passed away shortly after the couple celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. For Margaret, a series of falls at home led to her decision to move to Emmaus House, Whitehaven, where she has lived since June 2024.
“It was difficult at first leaving my own home. But after a fortnight of settling in, I knew I couldn’t be in a better place. Everyone works so hard and is so friendly.”
Reflecting on all that she has done, she says, “I’m just a village lass that has had a great life. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think of marching down The Mall and going to Buckingham Palace. I’ve had a lovely life and no complaints whatever.”
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