Margaret Ruth Downing, or Maggie as she was generally known to me, was born on 31st May 1940 to Frank and Eva Downing. She had two older sisters, Jean and Mary, and a brother Peter. In 1943 brother Michael came along to complete the family.
The Downings were a close family and during the war years lived with their maternal Grandmother before moving to Normandy Avenue.
The family attended the Eld Lane Baptist Church and were all members of the Boys and Girls’ brigades, where father Frank was an officer with the Boys Brigade and wife Eva was camp cook.
Maggie attended Harwich Road school and passed the 11-plus to go to the North East Essex County Technical school. She did very well academically and also excelled at sport, gaining a place in the School Hockey Team.
She admitted recently that her school days had been very happy, helping overcome the loss of her beloved father when she was just thirteen.
She took a secretarial course and on leaving school joined Kent Blaxhill as a secretary and later worked for Abbotts Estate Agents.
Her son Gareth was born during her first marriage and years later she would be over-joyed to re-connect with him again and get to know his wife Sarah-Jane and their three daughters, Elisha, Kayleigh and Eleanor.
As for me, it may sound corny but when I met Maggie it was ‘Love at first sight’. Our eyes met across the dance floor at Cherry Tree Camp, Colchester where I was serving as a Military Policeman. We never properly met until weeks later. Me, 19 years, Maggie 23 years old, married with a child.
After a couple of difficult years for everyone concerned, I left the army and we were eventually married. I joined the Essex police and Chris was born, our proudest achievement. We relocated around the county as my job required, moving from  Laindon to Sible Hedingham, to Harlow and then Chelmsford.
A year before I retired, we moved to our final home at Tiptree and lived there together happily for 28 years.
It’s here that we came to know and love Kelly, who lived across the way and was experiencing some tough times personally. Maggie took her under her wing and became a surrogate mum to her.
Maggie and I holidayed on several cruises, as well as visiting Canada and South Africa. It was during the latter that she had the privilege of petting Cheetahs – one of the best experiences of her life. She always had a profound sense of love for all animals - especially her cats. And her last wishes were that the ashes of these beloved furry companions join her in the afterlife, which we intend to honour.
She enjoyed the simple pleasures during retired life, watching her TV soaps, reading crime novels and doing the crossword. She also loved Scrabble and during the last two months of lockdown we played games every day, spending quality time together that we would never normally have done. I will always cherish those afternoons.
Maggie was intelligent, attractive, kind, young at heart, with a lovely sense of humour.
Like many marriages we had our ups and downs. She could be argumentative, contradictory and at times lovingly frustrating. But she was my “soulmate” for 56 years and I loved her deeply. I must have done because I married her twice! God bless Marg – you’ll be so missed.