Margaret Darwall-Smith (née Haydon) S.1941-49 died on 23 October 2021 aged 90. Margaret grew up in rural Somerset, the daughter of a local headmaster, she attended Sidcot from 1941 to 1949, as did her brother and sister after her. Margaret was a keen pianist, and she benefitted to the full from Sidcot’s flourishing music tradition. In particular, she always spoke with great warmth of her piano teacher there, Arthur Baynes. Indeed, she greatly enjoyed her time at Sidcot as a whole, and always looked back on her time there with much affection (although she did later confess that she found the Sunday meetings rather hard going!). “Hayday”, as she was nicknamed, made many friends at school, several of whom remained in touch for many decades, and she regularly attended reunions in the school at Eastertime.

In 1949 Margaret was offered a place at the Royal College of Music. She was also awarded a county scholarship. In those days, Somerset awarded just two scholarships a year, and it was almost unheard-of for a musician to receive one. Margaret greatly enjoyed her three years in London. She heard many of the famous musicians of the day, and remembered being part of a sample audience brought in to test the acoustics of the new Royal Festival Hall.

At the RCM, the piano remained Margaret’s main instrument, but in her last year there, she studied for a teaching degree, and on going down in 1952, she found a job as Assistant Director of Music at Micklefield, a girls’ school in Seaford, a town on the Sussex coast near Brighton.

Margaret would spend the rest of her life in Seaford. There she met her husband Randle, a prep school headmaster there, whom she married in 1962. Randle had been recently widowed, and Margaret bravely took on the care of four stepsons, as well as having a son of her own, Robin. After her marriage, Margaret became Director of Music at two Seaford prep schools, St. Wilfrid’s and Newlands. Margaret was an inspirational teacher, transforming the musical life of each school she worked at, and several of her pupils at all three schools became professional musicians.

Outside her school work, Margaret was deeply involved in local music-making. In the 1960s and 1970s she conducted the Seaford Choral Society and she was in great demand as an accompanist and piano teacher until her early eighties. It became something of a family joke when she said that this was the “last time” that she would accompany at a concert!

In her family, Margaret was a much-loved mother and stepmother, and she took great pleasure in her many step-grandchildren and step-great-grandchildren. Randle’s death in 1999 was a great blow, but she managed to create a new life for herself, making new friends, and always having a piece by her beloved Bach on the piano ready to learn. All of us sorely miss her.