About Mary Medawar

Mary Medawar is an author living in London.

The poem Fern Hill evokes the early years of my childhood in North Wales, where my brother and I ran wild through woods fragrant with honeysuckle and bluebells.   Of Welsh and part Irish heritage, our parents were gifted amateur musicians so the house resounded with Handel, and Chopin.  One of my earliest memories of the magic of books was Mother’s red- leather- bound, Complete Works of Shakespeare.  Its tissue thin, gilt -edged pages needed to be turned with care; it was the coloured plates I wanted to look at and one in particular,   Millais’ painting of The Death of Ophelia which fascinated me.

At the age of seven, father’s work took us to Leicester where we joined a library and really enjoyed hurrying home impatient to make a start on our new reads.  Gradually schooling became difficult as both my brother and I had inherited optic atrophy.  The eyes are working normally but the central fibres of the optic nerve slowly deteriorate.  So it was difficult for teachers to understand why I was not able to read what they had written on the blackboard.  Nor why my brother had misjudged a ball at cricket.  We both needed to have careers which could carry on if our sight went completely – fortunately it has not.  My brother chose physiotherapy, and I to be a teacher for the blind.   An off-spin of this work was to visit Nottingham prison, to teach Braille, to men serving life sentences, who wished to transcribe books into Braille for visually impaired children. 

Later on a change of career took me into the NHS, by way of a new post inspired by The King’s Fund in collaboration with the governors of the Royal Free Hospital.  With the guidance of staff and trade unions I was to assess the likely needs of patients and staff at a new hospital, then under construction in Hampstead.  Coordinating Voluntary Services turned out to be the most exciting and rewarding work - I ran ‘the department of happiness’ for over fourteen years and then, exhausted , my husband suggested;  “why don’t you take a year off – write a book -  so I did – Under the Tricolour followed by  Gabriella.

 Whilst I was finishing my third novel Divine Revenge, I was invited to join the board of the Arts Club on Dover Street London.  Subsequently I was elected as its first woman chairman.  My vision was to make the club more fun, and to connect it with the differing disciplines of the arts.  Sir Anthony Dowell, graciously gave his name as the first recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci Award, followed later by Sir David Attenborough.  And as chairman of the club’s Charitable Trust, other awards were made to help young people within the arts.  After I stepped down as chairman I picked up the ‘pen’, and wrote some short stories, and a murder play for television.

Then I began work on The Split Tree.  At the end of January 2015 my husband died.  Throughout our marriage, because of my difficulty in having to read with a powerful magnifying glass, Nick generously devoted hours to reading poetry and novels to me.  So I have dedicated The Split Tree to him.  And I am now researching for a new book set in the period of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII.