Lives at: Hill House, Boundary Road.

Age: Late forties

Appearance: 5’4” tall, slim and petite. Born with naturally blonde hair but which is now helped along by regular visits to the hairdresser. Blue eyes.

Marilyn is and always has been a very determined person, defiant as a girl but has mellowed with age. She is as deeply caring of her children as her husband but with a more flexible and common sense approach. Sometimes exasperated that Richard refuses to take life as seriously as she would like, she remains immensely proud of his achievements and is as much in love with him as she was when they first married.

Family: Husband: Richard

            Daughter: Leonie

            Son: Andrew

Background: Born in Oatfield, the only child of Ann and Ronald Hunt, Marilyn was brought up in a relatively prosperous household, her father was the headmaster of the Grammar school she attended in Woodbury. With great hopes for her education and career, her parents were horrified when she became friends with Richard Ward, regarding him as a good-for-nothing layabout unworthy of their daughter. When she flatly refused to stay on at school and follow the route to university that they had mapped out for her, they blamed Richard for her defiance of them and did all they could to dissuade her from what they saw as the ‘road to disaster’. Determined to prove them wrong and even more single-minded when it came to Richard, Marilyn found a job in an office and enrolled at college to obtain the secretarial qualifications she needed to further her career, marrying Richard, despite her parents’ objections, as soon as she could do so without their permission.

Shortly after their marriage, she became pregnant with Andrew and it seemed to her parents that their prophecy was about to be realised but by working almost until her son was born and with the help of her mother-in-law Eunice after that, able to get back to work soon afterwards, Marilyn ensured that she played a part in helping to keep the family afloat financially. When her second child, Leonie, was born, pressure was again brought to bear to leave her life of ‘drudgery’ and return home where she and the children would be ‘well provided for’. Angry at their failure to see what a steady and loving marriage she had and deeply hurt at the slight against her husband who was doing well in his job and working hard to support them, she argued fiercely with her parents; a rift that was never truly healed.

When Richard told her that he was considering starting his own business, she enthusiastically encouraged him and worked from home providing secretarial and typing services to small businesses until his company got off the ground.

Currently: Although their future was assured when Richard’s engineering firm went from strength to strength, Marilyn insisted that she should still work to give her some interest outside the home and money of her own. Now works part time as a secretary.

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MARILYN WARD nee Hunt

Leonie and Andy's mother

Married to Richard