Margaret Gregson/Mary Ashleigh

Margaret Gregson (also known as Mary Ashleigh) was born in 1956 in the small seaside town of St. Annes-on-Sea and has lived in Lancashire all her life. She is married with four grown up children.

From being a small child, Margaret has always loved drawing, and always had a fascination with fairies and fairytales. She has always believed in fairies and magic and when her own children were small she used to love inventing stories for them around magical themes.

As a small child herself, she was always engrossed in books and her particular favourites were “The Magic Faraway Tree” by Enid Blyton and “Bill Frog to the Rescue” by Cam. Both stories captured her imagination, as well as the wonderful illustrations, especially the brilliant artwork of Cam.

Margaret has developed her own artistic style over many years after studying art at college in the 1970s. While she has drawn inspiration from artists she admires, including Cam, Michael Hague and Arthur Rackham, her main source of inspiration continues to be her own imagination.

She has an absolute passion for her work and finds it difficult to describe the wonderful sense of achievement she gets from producing a finished piece of work. She is a perfectionist, and can spend many hours working on a fine detail until satisfied that she has got it right.

She has always worked with pencils, pastels, ink and watercolours, and has recently begun to use digital media, which has added another dimension to her work.