Margaret Lawson

My grandmother, Margaret Lawson, who has died aged 96, was in many ways a woman ahead of her time. She was a passionate environmentalist who worked as a civil servant as well as raising seven children, and at the age of 67 went to university.

Margaret was born in Brixton, south London, to Joseph Shaw, an accountant, and his wife, Eleanor (nee Wells), a year after the end of the first world war, the eldest of seven children. Her parents were spiritualists.