'I was so lucky to be raised in this home from home'

It's 1948, the war is over but times are painfully tough. Food is rationed but wee Margaret Irvine's dad, a brickie, has enough money for beer and, sadly for his dozen children, he has a strong liking for a pint.

The toddler and her older siblings - most of them not much bigger than her - are running loose outside her parents' chaotic Prestonpans home. The neighbours are so worried, they call the local authority, welfare officers descend and the youngest and most vulnerable of the family are systematically rounded up.

Around this point, Margaret might start to feel a bit sorry for herself.

She might wonder why it all happened to her. Why was she the one who now had to grow up in the sterile and unloving environment of a creepy old home run by a stern matron?

Why was Margaret the one with a broken childhood, a drunken dad and a mum who either didn't care or just couldn't cope?

She may have been forgiven for some self pity. But the truth was that Margaret was to enjoy some of the best days of her life.

"I actually thought I was incredibly lucky," she laughs, shrugging off an upbringing in care that would have had others contemplating the therapist's couch and sharpening their pencil in preparation for churning out the latest "misery memoir".

"I actually felt sorry for other children who didn't live in a big old fantastic house like me and who didn't have this huge group of other children to play with all the time," she adds. "It never occurred to me that anyone would feel sorry for me - I didn't. I was having a great time!"

Margaret, now 64, her two sisters and four brothers had been sent to Tenterfield, a rambling historic mansion house in Haddington with at least 20 rooms, which was once frequented by philosopher Thomas Carlyle and later taken over by the local authority to care for its most neglected and vulnerable young citizens. There they encountered the kind-hearted matron - Miss Martin - who would provide the young Margaret and her siblings with all the love, care and guidance that their wayward parents never could.

Such was the positive impact of Tenterfield, and Margaret's increasing concern at how negatively children's homes came to be portrayed, that she resolved to tell her own story in a refreshing antidote to the self-absorbed "misery memoir" genre.

In it, Margaret portrays an almost idyllic childhood filled with laughter and fun, of days spent running happily around the home's rambling estate, climbing trees and pond dipping, basket weaving with the nannies, baking with the cook. It's all a long way from the image of neglected toddler, starving and left to her own devices on the streets around her home.

"There were so many good things that came out of Tenterfield for me," says Margaret who spent 14 years living at the local authority home. "I've been saying to myself that I must be remembering it wrong, that surely it couldn't have been that perfect, but, no, it really was."

Today Margaret, from Duddingston, is a grandmother with four children, including twins she adopted with husband Gordon Stewart.

Perhaps as a result of her own childhood, she devoted her life to caring for children - today she works as a respite carer for young children in families which need extra local authority support. But in 1948, she was a waif-like tot, cared for largely by her older siblings.

"I can only imagine that it must have been a hard life for my mum," says Margaret. "She had 15 children. Two died before I was born, one died after, all born one pretty much right after the other.

"By all accounts my mum came from a good family and she married "beneath her stock". My father was a brickie to trade when he did work, otherwise, he was down at the pub."

The Irvine children ranged in age from late teens down to toddler Margaret. "Of course the neighbours must have seen us, and in particular me, this two-year-old, wandering about the street. We were real ragamuffins.

"Apparently when the welfare came to take us away, my big sister hid me by rolling me up inside a carpet. The social workers did a head count, realised one was missing and found me, fast asleep."

Sisters Margaret, Betty and Josie, and brothers Jimmy, Winston, Angus and Tommy were taken to a children's shelter in Edinburgh and then to the county council's newly acquired children's home at Tenterfield.

"It was the biggest house I'd ever seen, the dining room was out of this world it was so beautiful with a huge mirror on the wall and half a dozen tables all set for four people. It was beautiful."

The siblings had been made wards of court - which meant they were unlikely to see their parents again until they were 16.

But they quickly settled into their new lives, largely thanks to the exceptional nurturing skills of the woman in charge, Dorothy Martin, whose father was Lionel Birch Martin, founder of the Aston Martin Car Company.

"I never felt sadness because I had her," smiles Margaret. "She told the children that it wasn't our fault we were in care that it was down to our parents. She was only 5ft 3ins, a small lady but very powerful in my life."

The children were taken on holiday to nearby Tyninghame, part of the Duke of Hamilton's estate, where they were treated to afternoon tea by the Lord and Lady, and also given time away from Tenterfield with foster families.

"We were encouraged to run about outside, climb trees and play in the sandpit or the swings," adds Margaret. "It was idyllic."

Even when the children started to move on, they kept strong links with the home.

"My future husband had to be "inspected" by Matron to make sure he was good enough," laughs Margaret. "She wanted to know that he had a good job and would look after me. She was right."

Margaret's relationship with her parents never recovered from that stuttering start.

She doesn't know what became of her father, while her relationship with her mother, already tarnished, would finally collapse on, sadly, her wedding day.

"I met my mother when I was around 16 but she was a stranger," recalls Margaret.

"She said she'd pay for my wedding. Three days before it, she said she hoped I didn't expect her to pay anything."

Her foster carers, Gorebridge couple Sally and Vic Laing, stepped in and provided her with a dress and a hat.

However, her big day was soured when, after exchanging vows, the couple were given a whispered warning by the church minister.

"He said we were to leave by the rear exit. My mother had arrived at the front door and was threatening to make trouble," says Margaret. "My face in the wedding pictures says it all: I'm not happy.

"But at the end of the day, the people I was with were the ones were the important ones. They were the ones who mattered most to me."

lTenterfield: My Happy Childhood In Care, by Margaret Irvine, is out now, published by Fledgling Press, 0131-343 2367/www.fledglingpress.co.uk