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TO COME away from a visit to Margaret Swain in her Edinburgh home bearing not only a copy of an 18th-century bill for furnishings but also a much-recommended recipe for a pear pudding and a cutting from her garden was to experience the combination of erudition and humanity that endeared her to so many people.
It was not until after her family had grown up that she had time to develop fully the interest in embroidery, textiles and furniture, in which she was to become so expert. At a time when most people might be settling to gardening, crime novels and voluntary work (all of which also took their due share of her time), she turned her attention first to embroidery and later to both tapestry and furniture.
Her sixties, seventies and eighties were to be consistently productive years for her, with a regular string of articles and books published. It was at the age of 80 that she published her catalogue of the tapestries in the Palace of Holyroodhouse and until as late as last year she was a regular attender at the Cieta (Centre International d'Etude des Textiles Anciens) international conference of textile historians.
She was born Margaret Hart, in Lancashire in 1909, the eldest of five children. Her early life was not easy and by the age of 17 she had lost both parents. She decided to train as a nurse at Bart's in London because in 1929 it was one of the few careers that offered immediate payment (pounds 2 a quarter, plus board) as well...