THE extraordinary life of a best-selling romance novelist, journalist, actress and theatre proprietor is the subject of a new book by Aberystwyth University tutor Liz Jones.

Marguerite Jervis’ flamboyant life – much of which was spent in and around Aberystwyth – is perfect material for a biography, as Liz has been finding out.

“During the course of her 60-year career, Marguerite published over 140 books, with 11 novels adapted for film, including The Pleasure Garden (1925), the directorial debut of Alfred Hitchcock,” Liz explained.

“With her enormous hats (which, in later life, she tended to adorn with a collection of waxed fruit), scarlet lips and alabaster-powdered face, she cut a striking figure.”

Marguerite moved to Aberystwyth in 1933 with her second husband and legendary ‘bachgen drwg’ of Welsh literature, Caradoc Evans.

Here she established Rogues and Vagabonds, the repertory theatre company with its stated aim of bringing English drama, performed by professional actors, to rural mid Wales.

“Based in the Quarry Theatre (where the former pub the Boar’s Head now stands), they put on shows by major playwrights such as Noel Coward, JB Priestly, Ivor Novello, and Emlyn Williams,” said Liz.

“They also toured west Wales, visiting Aberdyfi, Machynlleth, Talybont, Borth, Lampeter, Aberaeron, New Quay, Aberporth and Llandrindod Wells.”

Later, Marguerite and Caradoc moved to New Cross with Marguerite’s son, Nicholas Sandys/Barcynski, where they spent the war years, returning briefly to Aberystwyth just before Caradoc’s death in 1945.

Later, Marguerite moved to Penrhyncoch, where she lived until the late 1950s.

“Around this time, she also lived on-and-off, at The Lodge of Plas Panteidal, near Aberdyfi, with Major Gordon Hewitt, a former English tea planter from Kenya.

“Even by the standards of Marguerite’s colourful life, this was a particularly colourful period, which she writes about it in her book, The Miracle Stone of Wales.

“This eccentric mystical memoir relates how a local ‘Dyn Hysbys’ bequeathed her a blue stone which contained the power to grant people’s wishes.

“Following her appearance, with the stone, on the BBC documentary The Secret Arts, Marguerite and Gordon held open house at the lodge to any visitors who hoped to benefit from the stone’s apparent magical powers.”

See this week’s Cambrian News for the full feature, available in shops and as a digital edition now