Dates

• Existence: 1925 - 2008

Parallel Names

• Tippey, Margaret

Biography

Margaret Hides (nee Tippey) was a well known and prolific travel writer who built an international reputation in this field, despite the challenges she faced as a traveller with a physical disability, having sustained an injury as a child.

Margaret started work as a copy typist with the Manchester Evening News and then The Manchester Guardian, where she met her husband, the journalist Michael Hides. In the 1950s she was warned that she may only by able to walk for another five years, and so she decided to travel to make the most of her mobility. She and Michael set off on an overland trek in a Land Rover through North Africa to India and back, funded partly by sponsorship, and partly be arranging to interview the wives of famous men along the way. On her return The Guardian asked her to write a series of articles which led to an invitation to become a freelancer at the Sunday Times where she worked for the 11 years, before spending 8 years writing for the Observer travel section.

Margaret joined the British Guild of Travel Writers in 1966, setting a trend of writers to visit far-flung places, despite her disability. After becoming a wheelchair user in later life, she specialised in writing about travel for people living with physical disability and the importance of accessibility for tourists with limited mobility. She died in 2008.

Sources: The Guide of Travel Writers website, 'Jumbo changes greet the Guild: the BGTW in the 1970s', accessed May 2025.

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