Margret began to practise yoga long before she retired from St Paul’s, which is where we met. She went to Pune to study with B K S Iyengar, the guru of the precise and clear form of yoga to which she was dedicated. She started teaching classes in her house at Fieldend, while continuing her Iyengar training with the most highly regarded teachers.

On two mornings a week, neighbours came to practise Iyengar yoga. Those of us who went to Margret’s Friday evening classes, frazzled after a hard week at work, were re-energised. They included ex-colleagues from St Paul’s, a future Director of the V&A and a future Director General of the BBC,

Just as Fieldend (which Margret loved) is an oasis of peace in London’s bustle, Margret’s yoga was an oasis of calm and concentration in busy weeks.

Margret knew that yoga is too important to be taken wholly seriously. A gentle irony was always just under the surface, expressed in phrases that live on in Fieldend yoga. She maintained that yoga was more effective than champagne in making one feel sparkly.
Her pupils learned new skills - how to distinguish a sweet pain from a sour pain and how to send one’s intelligence to unlikely parts of the body.
They developed new understandings - that a shoulder stand is a sure remedy for all ills and that one’s inability to stretch into demanding positions is the result of ancient fears.

Many of Margret’s pupils have continued to practise yoga, and remember her with gratitude and affection.

Alison and Roy Dietz