Margaret powell biography
- Margaret Powell (1907 – April 1984) was an English writer.
- Margaret Powell was an English writer.
- Margaret Powell was born on October 30, 1907 in Hove, East Sussex, England, UK. She is known for Number 96 (1972), The Barry Humphries Show (1976) and.
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Margaret Powell Biography, Books, and Similar Authors
Margaret Powell Biography
Margaret Powell was born in 1907 in Hove, and left school at the age of 13 to start working. At 14, she got a job in a hotel laundry room, and a year later went into service as a kitchen maid, eventually progressing to the position of cook, before marrying a milkman called Albert. In 1968 the first volume of her memoirs, Below Stairs, was published to instant success and turned her into a celebrity. She died in 1984.
Books by this author
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- Reviews
- "Beyond the Book
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Maid in England
In 1968 first-time author Margaret Powell published Below Stairs, a memoir of the 10 years she had spent in domestic service earlier in the century. The book sold 14,000 copies in the first 12 months, a figure described both at the time and since as "huge". In fact, the figure is good but not spectacular. What was "huge" was what happened next: 60-year-old Powell leveraged her slim book into an unlikely media and literary career. Further volumes about her experience of domestic service followed, then some novels. But it was on television that she really "broke through" as they almost certainly didn't say in 1968. With a strong Sussex accent, punched up by Cockney highlights and a dirty honk of a laugh, Powell's breezy anecdotal style made her a popular turn on The Petticoat Line, Russell Harty Plus, and Larry Grayson's Hour of Stars.
I originally read Below Stairs in the mid 70s as a history-mad schoolgirl. I had recently been allowed to start watching Upstairs, Downstairs, the Edwardian toffs-and-servants LWT drama for w
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Saving lives: Margaret Powell’s world-spanning journey
Dolores Long reviews ‘Margaret Powell: An Extraordinary Life’ by Ruth Muller (Crickhowell District Archive Centre, 2022). This piece was originally published in ¡No Pasaran! 3-2022.
This is a short biography of the fascinating life of Spanish Civil War nurse volunteer Margaret Powell (1913-1990), written by her daughter. Lily Margaret was born into a farming family at Cwm Farm in Llangenny, Breconshire. She attended the small village school, one where Welsh speaking children from the surrounding hills were forbidden to use their mother tongue and beaten if they did. Margaret recalls how she got the usual caning from her teacher: ‘ten smart cuts on my hands but I never flinched or cried because I knew that that was what he wanted’ an early indication of the strength of character and bravery she would display throughout her life.
Margaret left her Welsh home at age 16 and by 23 had qualified as a State Registered Nurse, gaining valuable experience in London hospitals as well as an awareness of the chan
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