I have meditated much about the poems and their effect on thoughtful readers for whom I have unlocked my heart And silence surrounded me. From this you will realise what a consolation it was to read your words. Please write to me again.When they met in London on 23 April at the Convent of the Assumption, Kensington Square, where Mother Margaret was Superior, Sassoon instantly recognised the confidante of his dream.By then he felt released from gloom and longed to learn more about Roman Catholicism. Mother Margaret did not instruct him but she remained his guide.

“I urged him to pray, prayer being the mainstream of my own life.” Sassoon was received into the Church at Downside, in Somerset, on 14 August 1957.Two months later, replying to his first cousin Rosalind Thorneycroft’s congratulations, he wrote:Ever since January I have experienced peace beyond anything I could have imagined possible. If you ever feel a bit discouraged and need fortifying, do go and see Mother Margaret Mary, she is simply wonderful.In 1959 Sassoon told Dame Felicitas Corrigan of Stanbrook Abbey, Worcestershire, who became a friend after his conversion:Mother Margaret Mary has been the greatest benefactor of my life and has never made a glimmer of a mistake in her guidance and influence.And in 1960, also to Dame Felicitas, he wrote:I can see now that I was standing at an immaterial doorway, wearing my knuckles out in vain M.M.M. just came along and opened the door.Mother Margaret had become Superior at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk (which she founded) and Sassoon often stayed at the Angel Hotel, Bury St Edmunds, in order to visit her, particularly over his birthday, 8 September ­ which, he delighted in telling people, was Our Lady’s birthday too. In term-time he read poems to the school there, answered questions and judged the entries for the annual Poetry Prize, which he had sponsored.His departures from Hengrave are vividly recalled by Anne Cecilia Baring:His ancient car once started could not be stopped until he reached Wiltshire. Lined up by Mother Margaret, the Community made a water-jug line until his tank was full.

Then he left, after many farewells, going round the herb garden at least twice, wearing his Panama hat and waving from the window.Several of Sassoon’s friends became devoted to Mother Margaret. Rupert Hart-Davis much enjoyed their discussions of literary topics and characters. He and his wife would have her to tea in Swaledale, in Yorkshire, and visit her at the Richmond convent, where Hart-Davis was the first layman to dine with the nuns. They also visited her at Headington, Oxford, where she was Superior from 1966 to 1975. She struck them as “hugely loving but also a firm disciplinarian”.

The student lodgers were allowed to entertain men downstairs, but if a man was found in a girl’s bedroom she was “out”. Mother Margaret told the Hart-Davises,We’re not all angels just because we’re nuns, so we have silence at breakfast, to avoid irritating each other, reading aloud at lunch, not necessarily a religious book, and chatter at supper.Haro Hodson also visited her at Headington. He used to ride over from Garsington, tether his horse to the garden tap and enjoy jolly kitchen teas with Mother Margaret and the Community.The final meeting in this world between Mother Margaret and Siegfried Sassoon was at Heytesbury, his house on the edge of Salisbury Plain, on 26 August 1967. Hopelessly ill with stomach cancer, he had asked his doctor to tell her how much he longed to see her. She was driven to Wiltshire from Headington by Sassoon’s niece Jessica Gatty, who had followed her uncle into the Church and later become an Assumption nun. He died on 1 September, a week before his 81st birthday.On 11 November 1985 Mother Margaret and Sister Jessica were driven to Westminster Abbey by Mother Margaret’s erstwhile pupil Isabel Quigly, for the unveiling of a plaque in memory of poets of the First World War.

Robert Graves was the sole survivor.Margaret Ross McFarlin ­ “Madge” to her family and contemporaries ­ was number four in a family of five, three girls and two boys. Her parents, Alfred Howard McFarlin, a compositor, and Jane McFarlin n?Harris, were born and bred in Liverpool.Mother Margaret was always grateful for her devoutly Catholic, loving, happy background. She went to the Notre Dame Collegiate School, Everton Valley, then in 1924, with a Senior City Scholarship, to Liverpool University to read English Literature. She was briefly a pacifist and a member of the Fabian Society. In 1925-26 she was on the Council of the Guild of Undergraduates and Student Treasurer of the guild’s magazine, The Phoenix.