1. Margaret Forster's father, Arthur Forster, was a mechanic or factory fitter, her mother, Lilian, a housewife who had worked as a clerk or secretary before her marriage.
17 Facts About Margaret Forster
1. 2.
Margaret Forster went on to win an open scholarship to study history at Somerville College, Oxford, graduating in 1960.
3.
Margaret Forster's first published novel Dames' Delight, loosely based on her experiences at Oxford, launched her writing career in 1964.
4.
Margaret Forster wrote prolifically in the 1960s and 1970s while bringing up three children, but later criticised many of her own early novels as "skittery", feeling she had not found a voice until her 1974 novel The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury.
5.
Margaret Forster tackled subjects such as single mothers and young offenders.
6.
In 1991, she and her husband, Hunter Davies, contributed to a BBC2 First Sight episode "When Love Isn't Enough", telling Marion Davies's story; Margaret Forster sharply criticised government policies on care for the elderly.
7.
Margaret Forster wrote fictionalised biographies of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray and the artist Gwen John.
8.
Margaret Forster joined the BBC Advisory Committee on the Social Effects of Television and the Arts Council Literary Panel.
9.
Margaret Forster served as a Booker Prize judge in 1980.
10.
Margaret Forster was the main non-fiction reviewer for the Evening Standard.
11.
Margaret Forster contributed often to literature programmes on television and BBC Radio 4, and to newspapers and magazines.
12.
Margaret Forster was interviewed by Sue Lawley for Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1994.
13.
Margaret Forster was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975.
14.
Margaret Forster met the writer, journalist and broadcaster Hunter Davies in their native Carlisle as a teenager.
15.
Margaret Forster led a somewhat reclusive life, often refusing to attend book signings and other publicity events.
16.
Margaret Forster's friends included broadcaster Melvyn Bragg and playwright Dennis Potter.
17.
Margaret Forster contracted breast cancer in the 1970s and had two mastectomies.