Margaret Briggs
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| Margaret Briggs September 2006 |
Interviewing Margaret Briggs, it was hard to believe that in April this year she reached the age of 90 and had lived in Thames Ditton for 25 years. She's well equipped with a smart digital telephone, email and a computer, and looks at least twenty years younger.
Before she married, Margaret was Secretary first to an author then a Literary Agent. At the age of 21 and newly engaged, she made a decision that was rather shocking at the time: she started her own business - a Secretarial Bureau. She did this because she realised that she was never going to fit into what was the norm and be a stay-at-home housewife. She wanted a home and children but she also wanted an outside interest where she could be her own boss and control her priorities.
Margaret married John Briggs in 1938 but the war came along and her husband, who became a Squadron Leader in the RAF, was sent to India for three years, leaving her with a baby daughter. Margaret tackled this period with characteristic pragmatism: taking a cottage, raising a pig (TD Today Vol 37 Autumn 2005) and running a cake shop (TD Today Vol 38 Spring 2006).
After the war, Margaret and John settled in Woking and had two more children. Still determined to live a full life she opened a Nursery School in her own home and began a successful career as a writer. Her first article was published by the London Evening News, where she soon established a regular column and went on to write a book "Jam Tomorrow" (Victor Gollancz). Many articles followed for the national press as well as a dozen or more short stories for the BBC.
John was very supportive of his wife's ventures as well as being a very active businessman himself. The Vice Chairman and Managing Director of a large paper manufacturing company, when he retired in 1969 he and Margaret went to live in Malta for a while.
It was a happy marriage for 43 years. After her husband died, Margaret moved to Thames Ditton and threw herself into voluntary work, including the Hospice and Samaritans. From 1984 until 1992 she was Editor of Thames Ditton Today, and still enjoys writing articles and producing periodic Crossword Puzzles for the magazine twice a year.
Margaret maintains, however, that her greatest contribution to the area has been her co-founding of Elmbridge U3A (University of the Third Age), where she still leads a local Creative Writing group. U3A is known worldwide and there are about a thousand branches in the UK. Locally it offers forty-five different interest groups to retired people, encompassing the arts, education discussion, languages and leisure activities. Elmbridge has six hundred members who pay a subscription of just ten pounds a year.
I discovered finally that Margaret is a Quaker, and attends the Meeting at Esher. As well as her three children, she has eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren (five by the end of this year). I was most interested to learn that her younger son is a playwright. He uses his second name, Richard Everett, as his nom-de plume and his latest play, Entertaining Angels with Penelope Keith as leading lady, is currently touring Woking, Richmond, Brighton and Bath prior to London.
Meeting Margaret Briggs was a very interesting experience. I now know what she meant when she said that her idea of unhappiness was not having enough to do!
Our Reporting Staff