Maggie was a writer, gardener and designer. When she was 47, Maggie was diagnosed with breast cancer and five years later, in May 1993, on a visit to the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, she was told that it had returned.
After hearing this, Maggie and her husband Charles Jencks were moved to a windowless corridor where they were left to process the news. They discussed the need for somewhere ‘better’ for people with cancer to go, outside of but nearby to the hospital.
Maggie felt that her diagnosis and treatment was as hard on her family as it was on her, so she created a new type of support, a centre that could make the experience of cancer more manageable for everyone.
She believed that with encouragement to become actively involved in treatment, and with the right information and support, people could change the way they live with cancer.
Maggie also wanted to bring people together in a calm and friendly space that would help them to find comfort in the experiences of others.
Maggie and Charles designed the blueprint for the centres together. The first Maggie’s opened in Edinburgh in 1996, and we now have centres across the UK and even some abroad.
Maggie died shortly before the first centre opened, at the Western General Hospital – but with the support of Charles, and her medical team, including her cancer nurse Laura Lee (now Maggie’s CEO), her vision has lived on.