Relationship to me:	Mother	Gen -1	'Mum' and Myself - circa 1959
Born:	1st February 1907	Karachi
Died:	25th December 1965	Somerset
Age	58
Father:	Dan Smith	1934
Mother:	M.H.N. Smith (née Wake)	1874 - 1969
Brothers:	Half-brother George Robert Richards	1900 - 197?
Sisters:	(younger) Phyllis(m. Evans)	1910 - 1986
Married:	Harold Ernest Montague Newman	m. June 30? 1929
Children:	Jane Newman	1930 - 1948
	Daphne Veronica Newman	1944 - still living
	Christopher John Edwin Newman	1946 - still living

Outline her Life: Margaret (or "Peg" as she was known) was born in Karachi (then part of India) in early 1907. She was sent home to England in 1913 to Eastbourne for her education. I know little of her early life, other than that the education she was sent home for was not particularly academic (strange considering her mother's academic achievements) and concentrated more on etiquette - something my mother regretted in later life, especially in her marriage to someone as intellectually inclined as my father. I recall her telling me that she learned French as a child and that she spent some time in France at some stage to improve her knowledge of the language.

In 1928, at the age of 21, she travelled to India to visit her half-brother "Dick" Richards who was serving in the army there, along with my father. This is how he and she met and (very quickly) fell in love - my father (an intensely shy man then and always) told me that he fell head-over heels in love within a very short time after meeting her, and that had to consume a large quantity of alcohol to summon the courage to ask her to marry him! Shortly afterwards, she was out riding (she was a good horsewoman in those days), but fell and broke her arm so badly that she had to be sent back to England (by boat, of course) for the break to be rebroken and set properly. It never did mend properly, and she lived the rest of her life with a slightly bent arm (hindering, amongst other things, her ability to play the piano).

She was married in Mosely, (my father returning home for the wedding, for which I believe he again had to sustain himself with "Dutch courage") on 29th June 1929 if my memory of the date is correct. They honeymooned near Tor Cross in South Devon after which they returned to India together ... but only for 12 weeks because (I gather) my father's company commander had left, and he didn't like the management style of his replacement.

Back in England again, my father was posted to CRE Welsh Area based in Shrewsbury where they lived for 12 months, at Bayston Hill just south of the Ordinance Survey headquarters (if I understand my notes correctly). My sister Jane was born at this time but at her grandparents' house in Sutton.

Their house in Shrewsbury had no running water, and my mother had to collect water for washing and drinking, from standpipes in the street. I also recall her and others telling me that Jane's birth nearly killed her, and that she was strongly advised not to risk having any more children afterwards. (I think the birth was complicated by a coincident severe illness - maybe appendicitis - but I can't remember enough to be sure).

Thereafter, they moved to Edinburgh for 2½ years, where they lived in rented accommodation. It was here that they bought some pieces of second hand furniture with which I became familiar in later times - including the "green-faced" grandfather clock.

In autumn 1933 they moved to Southampton to a new unfurnished house in Bassett Close, called "Bilsdean" (after which my father's house in Brent Knoll was later named). There they stayed until the end of 1935 when my father travelled back to India alone. I suspect (from my notes) that Jane was by then living in Mosely with Gran Smith and "Nanny" (Miss Ingram, who later became my nanny).

Anyway, Margaret travelled to India in March 1937 to visit my father. She travelled with him by troop train to Mari-Indus from where my father travelled on to Wizeristan for a two-year stint. Margaret stayed on living on a house boat until October 1937 when my father was permitted to spend two weeks with her. She then returned to England at the end of the year, where I think my father returned for three months leave in 1938 travelling back to India by plane for the first time (stopping in Amsterdam, Athens and Alexandria - and perhaps other places too).

By then Margaret was living Harman's Cross between Swanage and Corfe Castle with Jane and Nanny, which was considered safer than Southampton with war imminent.

In March 1939 my father returned to the UK once again on "furlough" - extended leave granted after 5 year's service - with 2 months at full pay and 6 months at half-pay. However the war intervened, and on September 3rd (the same day WW2 was declared) he sailed from Glasgow arriving back in Bombay in October.

Margaret and her sister Phil travelled to Llangurig in Wales to escape the bombing of the cities where they stayed until 1942, when they went to Dorset, living in Halstock near Yeovil (I'm not sure if Margaret went alone or whether Phil went with her, but certainly Jane and Nanny accompanied her). My father returned there in 1943 to regain his health after his ordeals in Burma and extended recuperation in India. A thin man at the best of times, my mother often commented on how thin he had become from those events. Anyway, my sister Daphne was born in Salisbury hospital while they were still living at Halstock, Margaret moving to Ringwood afterwards when my father was posted to Germany in 1944.

(Sadly my notes end in mid-sentence at this point, and I have rely on my own memory and knowledge for the rest of Margaret's story).

I don't know when my father returned from Germany, but I guess it was 1945. He was then posted to Chessington in Surrey, south of London, and my parents rented a house in Ashtead nearby. It was while living there that I was born in Epsom Hospital in August 1946. It always seemed to me to have been very brave of my mother to have had two more children following the warning she was given after Jane's birth, but Jane did not have long to live, and I gather my parents made a calculated decision to take the risk of starting a new family when they did before it was too late. As it was, my father was 45 when I was born, and my mother 39.

In 1949 my father made a sudden decision to leave the army, and arranged the purchase of Churchland Farm in Basin Bridge, north Somerset through an agent in London. My mother wasn't able to see the property before it was purchased and it seems that she was quite shocked when she saw its state of disrepair for the first time when she moved there in June of that year. Gran Smith" moved there too presumably at the same time, and it was here that I enjoyed a sometimes idyllic childhood in the depths of country England.

My parents were still impecunious at the time (the army was not a well paid profession in those days, and my father missed out on a big retrenchment payout by resigning a few months too early. Thus Gran Smith had to pay for the house for them in return for being given accommodation in it - a happy enough arrangement from the point of view of us children, but there's no doubt it was a cause of some frustration for my father.

Margaret's 13 years at Churchland Farm were spent in almost endless toil. Not only did she have two young children to bring up, but she had to help out with the farm duties, do the majority of the cooking (three large cooked meals per day, plus cakes for afternoon tea), the housework, washing and ironing, sewing (making new clothes and repairing old), knitting and (not least) redecorating what was an incredibly old and run-down house and garden. Luckily she was blessed with her mother's boundless energy; I don't recall her ever resting or relaxing with nothing to do.

Sadly she wasn't blessed with her mother's long life, and barely 3 years after "retiring" to Park Farm during which time she and my father undertook a complete redecoration of the house, she was diagnosed with colon cancer in early 1965, after complaining for a long time about stomach pains (and not having time to do anything about it). Characteristically, she defied the doctors who gave her three or four months to live, and survived till the winter, passing away peacefully on Christmas day 1965, achieving her desire to spend one last Christmas with us. The family were eating Christmas lunch with the Wheelers from across the road. Half way through the meal, my father and I went upstairs to check on 'Mum' who was by then unconscious. Either we were lucky to be there at that moment to witness her passing, or else she chose to go while we were with her.