A WELL-KNOWN figure as a teacher and writer in Whitehaven has died aged 93.

Margery Railton taught at St James’ Infant School for over 35 years and was later the writer for the church comment column in The Whitehaven News.

Born Margery Black in September 1929 in the Ginns, she was brought up in the Anchor Vaults pub which stood at the top of Coach Road. 

Her father Bob was a fitter and, while it was his name that was above the door, it was her mother Laura (born Laura May Garroway) who ran the pub and kept it spick and span for its clientele of miners, Ginns habitués and visiting rugby league fans. 

Margery never tired of telling people that she had been ‘the luckiest girl in Whitehaven’ as she could help herself to lemonade in the pub after school each day.

As a child she roamed widely as far as Parton where her grandparents lived and St Bees where her aunt and uncle kept the café.  Here she took the opportunity to help herself to ice cream.

She studied at Crosthwaite School and Whitehaven Grammar School.  While at school she met her future husband Ivor Railton and, though he went away to the navy after the war, he returned and they were married in 1956.  They went on to have a son, Bruce. Ivor died in 2014.

Margery taught the reception class at St James’ Infants School leading generations of Whitehaven children through their first steps in reading and writing.

Sometimes describing herself as a ‘bossy teacher’, she had the clear strong voice and manner to command a classroom of five-year-olds.

A lifelong church goer, on her retirement she took up with gusto the challenge of writing a monthly column on religious matters for The Whitehaven News. 

Never using a typewriter let alone a computer, she wrote her copy longhand in her clear teacher’s handwriting and delivered it through the letter box of The Whitehaven News office without fail on a Tuesday night for Thursday publication.

Margery was a lover, and hearty singer of hymns.  She also loved music both classical (Tchaikovsky and Borodin were particular favourites) and popular (her tastes in the latter terminating abruptly at the end of the 1950s).  

She enjoyed clothes, was ‘smart’ rather than stylish with a line in hats for all seasons and a preference for shades of green. With her sister-in-law Iris, she would regularly be seen immaculately dressed walking in the town centre or along the harbour well into her nineties.

Margery, who died on July 27 in Whitehaven, will be fondly remembered and missed by many. Her recent well-attended funeral at St James’ Church was testament to the strong affection for her in the hearts of her many friends, readers and former pupils.