1987

Delayed by child-rearing Margie still managed to have an amazingly varied work career across government, business and the legal profession.

Family values and work

Thomas Bowen was mean with money when it came to his family. His wife, Mary Veronica, often had to beg for the housekeeping funds. Perhaps it was for this reason that Thomas' daughter, Patricia Bowen, grew up with the firm conviction that a woman should have her own means of income.

Students, St Patrick's Secretarial College, Sydney circa 1940

At the age of fifteen, Patricia left school after her intermediate exams and studied for a secretarial diploma at St Patrick’s College in The Rocks. She was in the workforce her whole life except for the period when her children were toddlers.

Patricia passed this ethic on to her own daughters and it was she who arranged Margaret’s first job. Patricia ran the office at the general practice of Dr. Joseph Couch in Gordon on Sydney’s North Shore and she secured the position of relief receptionist for her 15 year-old daughter. Margaret worked some days after school, on Saturday mornings and during the school holidays. Her mother bore the brunt of most of the work, but it taught the girl responsibility and gave her a decent amount of pocket money to support a 1960’s teenage lifestyle. Dr. Couch became a true, family friend. Margaret’s wedding reception was held in his grand home in Wahroonga and when Patricia was diagnosed with cancer at the age of fifty, Dr. Couch took great care of her until her death five years later.

During the Christmas holidays of 1969 and 1970 Margaret did the usual thing and worked in retail. Her mother’s cousin, Allan Seage, was a manager in Mark Foy’s, the most prestigious department store in Sydney. The building is now the District Court of NSW, Downing Centre, Liverpool Street in the city.

Mark Foy’s had a subsidiary, down-market store called McDowell’s, situated on the corner of George and King Streets, where the NRMA skyscraper now stands. It was here, in the scarf department, that Margaret served her sentence. Both she and her bosses quickly realized she had neither the talent nor the temperament for sales.

Marriage, education, kids & work

In 1972 after her H.S.C. exams, Margaret won a teacher’s scholarship and enrolled at Macquarie University for a Bachelor of Arts/Diploma of Education degree. Half way through her course she married Daniel Maurice and in July 1974 accompanied him on his first diplomatic posting to Athens. In those years, the “wives” were not permitted to work. From the start, life as a Foreign Affairs’ spouse rankled.

They returned to Canberra in mid-1977 and Margaret got a job as a hotel receptionist at the Canberra City Travelodge on Northbourne Avenue. The hotel had one of the old switch-boards with dozens of leads and plugs. She was sacked when she happily informed management of her pregnancy.

The years between 1978 and 1985 were filled with two babies, her daughters Yvette and Gabrielle, and two further postings, first to Bangkok and then to New Delhi. These were the housewife years filled with play groups, pre-school, house moving, lots of home entertaining (both formal diplomatic functions and casual parties with friends) and travel. Yvette was six months old when she went on her first plane trip to visit friends in Fiji and Gabrielle, who was born in Bangkok, was only three months old when she became an international traveller.

In these years, too, Margaret returned to university to complete her B.A. degree with the hope that she might be able to teach English when she went on further postings. She finally achieved this degree in 1986 after fourteen years of interrupted study and through three universities – Macquarie (Sydney), A.N.U. (Canberra) and New England (Armidale).

By 1986 Margaret wanted to settle in Australia and enjoy her own working life. Daniel resigned from Foreign Affairs and the family bought a small flat in Rushcutters’s Bay in Sydney. Yvette and Gabrielle began life as Aussie schoolgirls at Kambala College in Rosebay.

Margaret secured her first job at the stockbroking firm of J B Were and Sons in the city. The job had the very important sounding title of “Librarian” but merely involved cutting out articles from the financial newspapers and filing them away.

She learned two important things. First, you can get badly burned on the stock market and second, an impressive title is all-important!

Politics and Government

In 1988, calling herself a “librarian”, she won a job on the personal staff of the state Attorney General, The Hon. John Dowd as his Assistant Personal Secretary, mostly managing the minister’s diary.

This was in the days before computers and mobile phones. The office had one photocopier and it had a coded lock so only privileged staff could operate it. The Attorney promoted Margaret to the position of Electorate Secretary. In this role she was his contact with his constituents in Lane Cove. She listened to complaints, researched solutions, reported to the minister and implemented the “fix it” schemes. John Dowd then promoted her to the role of Assistant to the Leader of the House. Dowd was in charge of government business in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and Margaret performed all the administrative tasks required to get bills debated and passed in parliament. She was in close contact with members of parliament and worked long hours in the office in Parliament House

John Dowd retired in 1991 and Margaret went to work for the Minister of Police, the Hon. Ted Pickering performing the same parliamentary role she had with Dowd, but this time in the Upper House. She was soon approached by the Clerk of the Legislative Council to become the Deputy Usher of the Black Rod, which she accepted.

Margaret was in charge of the administrative staff in the Legislative Council responsible for all the paperwork that flows through parliament and for organizing big parliamentary ceremonial occasions. She wore the traditional usher’s uniform of black breeches, tailcoat and a lace jabot.

Corporate Life

In 1996, looking for something completely different, Margaret went to work as the Executive Assistant to the C.E.O. of American Express, Mr John Schaap -- from a work environment that upheld medieval British traditions to one of cutting edge, modern American corporate life.

John Schaap, CEO, American Express Australia

1999 was the year of Margaret and Daniel’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. She resigned from work and they went on a long European holiday, especially back to Greece where their married life had really begun. They were very happy that their daughters, Yvette and Gabrielle could travel with them.

Matt Hanbury, Owner / Publisher, Murdoch Magazines

In 2000 she went back to work, again in the role of Executive Assistant, this time to the owner/publisher of Murdoch Magazines, Matt Handbury, a nephew of Rupert Murdoch.
Matt was a charming but eccentric character and the job reflected this. Margaret was very happy to take a break in 2001 when Daniel was sent on a temporary assignment in Edinburgh, Scotland by his then employer, Colonial First State. She had always been a lover of all things Scottish and relished the opportunity to spend each day driving around the country or walking the ancient streets of the city. She went back to work at Murdoch Magazines later that year but she found her duties as quirky as ever. She learned nothing about the publishing business but became an increasingly talented “go-fer”.

The Judiciary

Frustrated, Margaret was delighted when John Dowd, the former state Attorney General and now a judge of the Supreme Court of NSW asked her to become his Associate. She now worked in the courts. She did legal administrative work and sat through murder trials and bail courts; swore in juries; filed evidence and judgments; and liaised with judges and the legal fraternity.

Margaret resigned from the workforce in 2004 just prior to her fiftieth birthday. Daniel’s work career evolved into international consultancy roles which took him for long periods to Europe and America. Margaret accompanied him to Brussels and San Francisco and they both enjoyed discovering new and wonderful places.

Maurice-Robinson Family

Margie at Work