Margaret Cropper

Margaret Cropper was the second wife of St. John Cropper, Roy Cropper’s father. St. John had walked out on his first wife Sylvia when he was ten years old. He felt guilty about the desertion of his son for the rest of his life and finally wrote to him in 2011 to make contact. Unfortunately the letter went astray and only reached Roy through his mother in May 2013. He reluctantly traced his father’s last known whereabouts which turned out to be a house in Blackburn. He and Hayley travelled there and met a stunned Margaret who told them that St. John had died three months before, thinking that his son wanted nothing more to do with him.

Margaret told Roy that he had three step-siblings: Isabelle, who lives in Cornwall, Jonathan and Stephen, one of whom lives in New Zealand. She quietly defended her late husband, telling Roy of the guilt that had lived with him, but equally sympathetic to Roy’s situation. She gave Roy a suitcase with a carefully wrapped train set within it, telling him that his father wanted him to have it. Roy wanted to get out of the house as fast as he could but Margaret told him that he could come back any time he wanted as he had family there and that his father was buried in the Redbrook Road Cemetery where he could visit him. Roy reluctantly did so several days later.