Margaret Elizabeth Palmer attended school in Throckley, Northumberland. She did well at school and passed exams that allowed her to become a student teacher. From the age of 13 to 18, Margaret travelled into Newcastle to a teacher training centre. She gave up her job when she got married, but was persuaded back during the First World War.

Here she talks to Amanda Arrowsmith, archivist from Northumberland Archives, about becoming a teacher in Northumberland at the beginning of the twentieth century.