Hi. Me again. The writer of this blog.

At the beginning of each of these posts, I'm going to do a bit of a preamble. A bit of..."me speech." There's probably a better term for it, but I'm going to do a bit of talking before the actual posting from the diary, and then I will post, in full, the diary entry.

What comes first here, is me saying...welcome to the beginning. I did not write what's to come, this introduction. That was done by the one who compiled this diary into a readable and, in this blog's case, post-able format.

Upon further reading, which I should have done before, I'd like to thank Ms K McKee of Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. She is the one who has put in the work to bring this all together, which gave my father, his brother and I, the privilege of being able to read it.

Thank you Ms Mckee, truly.

There will be some formatting edits that I will conduct here so that the text presented can fit in the format of this blog.

There are two blocks of this introduction. The first, directly below, was written by Ms K McKee of Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, with the permission of my father, Stanley (Stan) Maton, granny's son, with this work presented in August 2023.

The second block of this introduction is, as you will read from the first block, written by Margaret...Granny...herself. It's strange to call her by her name. But you'll forgive the formalities. I've never done this before. She'll always be "granny" to me. Myself and many others.

So...get ready for a lot of reading. And...thank you for reading it, any of it, if you do so. Thank you for coming on this journey with me.

Introduction #1: From the hand of Ms M McKee

Margaret Lily Head was the middle child of Frederick and Alice Head of Lingfield, and a senior pupil at Oxted County Grammar School at the outbreak of the Second World War. She became a student of King’s College London in September 1941, attending university in Bristol until September 1943, when King’s College returned to London.

Frederick Head was the manager of the sewage works; Margaret assisted with operational tasks including night-watching at the works when on occasion he was ill, and helped with technology such as a field telephone. Margaret's brother Gordon joined the RAF and contracted polio while stationed in Malta in 1943, after which he was paralysed.

After the war Margaret gained a teaching diploma, and for a while taught in Bermuda before returning to Lingfield, where she became among other things a parish councillor. Margaret married Arthur Maton in 1956 and had two sons, Andrew and Stanley. After Arthur's death, she emigrated with her sons to New Zealand in 1971, and had a long teaching career as a maths teacher.

The document preserved here is a copy made by the donor of Margaret Maton's own word-processed transcription of her diary, done in the 1980s. Margaret's introduction, apparently written at a later date and reconstructing recollections of 3 September 1939, sets the scene for the main body of the work, which is a detailed diary account of her experience during the Second World War, organised into chapters. A preface by the donor supplies the background to the diary and the life of Margaret Maton, nee Head (1923-2019).

Margaret's first-hand account of the experience of the war is honest and clear about the stress of her situation and that of her family, for example as she and her brother discussed the possibility of German invasion in August 1940, when Margaret and her father would have to remain in Lingfield to defend the sewage works.

In her chapter beginning September 1940, she comments, 'Last year at this time I was a child. This year at 17 I feel a thousand years old. I have been shot at, bombed and watched men dragged off to an internment camp, others plunged to their deaths, and all my schooling is interrupted'.

Introduction #2: From the hand of Margaret Lily Maton nee Head

Margaret Lily Head was born on the 1st March 1923 in Lingfield, Surrey, the daughter of Frederick and Alice Head. She had an elder brother, Gordon and a younger sister Barbara. The family lived at Homelea, Common Road, Lingfield Common, Surrey.
Her father was the Manager of the Outfall, or Sewage Works.

At the start of the war, when the diary begins, Margaret was a pupil at Oxted County Grammar School. She was a keen tennis and hockey player and became captain of her teams. She was a prefect and eventually became Head Girl.

She also enjoyed music and played the piano at the morning assembly. After leaving school she became Secretary of the Old Students’ Association. She was also very involved in village life, helping to run the Sunday School and often playing the organ at Lingfield Church. She obtained a B.Sc. from King’s College, London and then her Teacher’s diploma after attending the National Institute of Education. At the age of 27 she went to Bermuda to teach.

Back in England, she became the first woman member of the Lingfield Parish Council, she was on the Board of Governors of Lingfield Secondary School and a member of the Lingfield Labour Party committee, eventually becoming Chairman.

In June 1956 she married Arthur Andrew Maton and they had 2 sons, Andrew in 1957, followed by Stanley in 1959. After the death of her husband she emigrated with her sons to New Zealand in 1971.

She taught at Waitaki Girls’ High School in Oamaru, then moved to the North Island where she became Head of the Maths department at Hastings Girls’ High School in Hawke’s Bay.

After retiring in 1980 she wrote a book which was designed for parents to help their children with maths. And then she transcribed her diary which she had written during World War II.

She gave a copy to each of her sons and one to her neighbour, and friend of 20 years, Shirley Hastie, who had helped her learn to use a computer. The diary is full of the names of Lingfield locals, schoolmates and relatives. During her retirement she stayed in Hastings, where she died on 26th January, 2019 at the age of nearly 96.