What first inspired me to become a writer?
Robert Bennie: At the time Mary was always around our office, a journalist at the newspaper where I worked, was asked to write about the vagrant woman. He made me think, by saying "You write it, there is a story in everyone". I then thought that I could write her story myself.

How would Margery feel having her life told in print?
Robert Bennie: She would be devastated, because the only person who can write a true story of anyone is the person themselves.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
Robert Bennie: The researching of past events and relating to the reader of the hard austere conditions that people had to ensure to live and the story having a biblical theme of believing in Life after Death.

Who is your literary hero?
Robert Bennie: Martin Middlebrook whose research into the war incidents is superb.

Who do you think had the most influence over Margery’s life?
Robert Bennie: The upbringing by her parents. The help of a neighbour Mrs. Swinton. The love for her husband Kevin and her firm belief in the Christian faith of a high moral standing.

Where did you first learn of Margery’s story?
Robert Bennie: The story began to evolve when, with workers at the newspaper I was working, we saw this vagrant when she used to help herself to hot water from the tea urns that were situated in the drive way of the publishing room. When anyone asked who she was, they were told that she had been a nurse. Every morning she would line up with six or seven vagrants in front of our office and waited for the machine minder from the Y2 machine, who would give sixpence to each vagrant and occasionally, a copy of our paper between them. Whether the story of her being an S.R.N. is true, only ‘Mary of the Dairy’ as she was known, would know.

When you heard ‘Mary of the Dairy’ did you know immediately that it was a story you wanted to write?
Robert Bennie: Having worked at a mainstream newspaper for approximately 40 years and I having been told about her and knew her as ‘Mary of the Dairy’ I watched other people in Fleet Street and in the Strand very, very occasionally speak to her, I felt empathy for her, then when I was on night duty near to the Christmas festivities, I was about to leave work when I was told that she had died alone that night on the steps of building, I felt a great sympathy for her.