Margarette Ann Corcoran

Margarette Ann Corcoran (née Colligan)

Margarette was born into a loving family in Paisley, Scotland, the youngest of three sisters – Maureen and Nancy, both now sadly deceased. Leaving school at 15, Margarette was a typical teenager of the 60’s, enjoying mini-skirts, dancing and with a very active social life. She and

Michael met on 28 May 1966 (at 6.30pm) at a Cub Scout Jubilee camp in Erskine; he asked her to marry him a week later and eventually, 3 years later, she agreed.

Over the years they had 3 children, Scott, Kenneth and Lesley Ann and 6 grand-children, Jamie, Callum, Lexi, Charlie, Oliver and Abbie. They were all the centre of her life and she was so proud of them all. Sadly, she never got to meet Abbie.

Margarette became an Army (Int Corps) wife in 1974 and was immediately launched into a long series of unaccompanied postings, raising the children alone and often in difficult emotional and financial circumstances. What a great job she made of it! And lived in countries as diverse as Scotland, England, Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, West & East Germany at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She was one of the Corps wives to volunteer as a bereavement counsellor in the first Gulf War.

In 1991 she led a 96 vehicle aid convoy into Romania after the fall of the communist government, working with orphans and disabled around Transylvania and Cluj.

By 1994, till retirement in 2010, she was working with SCOPE (cerebral palsy) and afterwards with Keeper’s Cottage (Down syndrome) at Ledbury, successfully enhancing the lives of many of the less able through college placements and obtaining their own accommodation.

By now she had moved to Malvern and began walking on the Hills. Just prior to retirement she began long distance walking, completing many including the Pennine Way (268 miles), the West Highland Way and Great Glen (96 and 79 miles respectively), Hadrian’s Wall (84 miles) and the Lares Trek to Machu Picchu in the Andes (37 miles at 4000 metres altitude) as well as a motorised canoe trip in the upper reaches of the Amazon.

Diagnosed with cancer (Mesothelioma) in early 2011 and given only a short time to live, she refused to surrender, gained an extra year of quality life and died peacefully on 22 April 2013 having been able to say farewell to the family just a few days before.

This bench which overlooks our old house at Stuart Lodge was where she would sit, almost daily.