Margaret Mary Leigh was an English writer who lived extensively in Scotland and wrote about life in crofting communities.
Background
She was born in London, England, the cousin of novelist Dorothy L. Sayers and the daughter of an Oxford don, and educated at Somerville College, Oxford. Leigh spent many of her early years travelling abroad for her father’s health. She eventually supported herself and her mother by subsistence farming, first in Cornwall, and later in Scotland.
Career
At various times, she acted as a governess, teacher and university lecturer. Leigh published a short book of poetry in 1923, Songs from Tani"s Garden, before writing her first novel, The Passing of the Pengwerns, in 1924. Harvest of the Moor recounts her experience farming in Cornwall.
In 1939, Leigh rode a horse from Cornwall to Scotland, which became the subject of her third book, A Kingdom for a Horse.
She subsequently settled there, living variously at the Isle of Barra, Fernaig in Ross-shire, Smirisary in Moidart and Inverness. Three of her books relate her experience in crofting communities in north-west Scotland before, during and just after World World War World War II
She died in Inverness, Scotland in 1973.