Her passion for literature, poetry and drama combined with her fighting spirit means that she is uniquely placed to tell people’s stories in sensitive and compassionate ways, chronicling their deepest hopes and fears whilst arguing their case persuasively. She brings a poetic lyricism and deep understanding of human nature to all her writing and reporting.

Early life & education

Marjorie was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and the beauty of the landscape with its undercurrent of dangers had a profound influence on the rest of her life. Her father was a civil engineer, building railways, and her mother a talented pianist.

Her parents moved to Surrey, where she left school at 16 to study piano and sing at the Royal Academy of Music in London. But overwhelmed by the competition, she fled to study her A-levels and become a student of philosophy and psychology at University College, London, where she graduated.

Journalism

She was accepted as one of the two graduate trainees by Independent Television working on The Frost Programme, the first serious ‘trial by television’ programmes, working alongside emerging celebrities such as John Cleese, Sir Antony Jay, Tim Brooke-Taylor, and Barry Cryer.

In-between series she produced the religious series The Last Programme, where she invented programmes revealing the beliefs, favourite poems and music of people in the limelight, including the Poet Laureate CD Lewis, comedians such as Peter Cook and Ned Sherrin, as well as politicians and priests.

She moved to London Weekend Television where she continued to work for David Frost, covering the 1969 moon landing.

In 1969, she was keen to become a film director/reporter, and joined the BBC for their pioneering current affairs magazine programmes Nationwide and Midweek. Many of the films used music in an unusual and ironic way, such as the actor Richard Todd’s Toome and Spike Milligan’s ‘Eel Pie Island’, as well as reporting on ridiculous stories featuring bouncing eggs from a helicopter and singing pigs. She worked on the first film to reveal the first training camp of the IRA.

In 1972, Marjorie joined The Sunday Times’ Insight Team under Sir Harold Evans. Her first task was to interview over 100 of the Thalidomide children, then aged 10-to-12, and their families, who had been shunned and silenced. Her moving and often harrowing stories formed part of The Sunday Times’ ‘moral’ campaign to shame Distillers, the company marketing the drug into offering £28 million compensation. The campaign also fought for freedom of speech and through meeting Seán MacBride, the Irish jurist, she was instrumental in bringing the case before the European Court of Human Rights, enabling the newspaper to tell the full story of how the drug was manufactured and marketed.

Over the years, her campaign journalism covered scandals, including the effects of families living in unsafe concrete tower blocks, gifted and disabled children, and the Dioxin disaster in Seveso, Northern Italy. For many years, she worked closely with the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, the late Lord Snowdon, on features campaigning for disabled and disadvantaged people.

She was co-author of the book Suffer The Children, and she wrote the story of Terry Wiles in On Giant’s Shoulders, and the original screenplay for the film of the same name.

“Marjorie Wallace on The Times and The Sunday Times, has well earned her reputation as one of the most eloquent and effective campaigning journalists of our age.” – Sir Peter Stothard, former Editor of The Times

The Silent Twins

She is probably best known for her book, The Silent Twins, the story of identical twins June and Jennifer Gibbons who were locked together as children in a strange and secret bondage, which made them reject the outside world and refuse to speak to adults, even their parents.

Following a five-week spree of vandalism and arson, the silent twins were sentenced to a gruelling twelve-year detention in Broadmoor. Marjorie gained the trust of the twins, who spoke to her, gave her their microscopically written diaries – millions of words – about their love-hate relationship, which she deciphered, from which she revealed the twins’ hidden genius, alienation, and the mystic bond that tied them together through the extremes of good and evil.

Their cause was widely publicised in the global media and mental health circles, and held up a stark light to the British justice system’s failures and the ineptitude of mental health care in the UK.

She also wrote the screenplay of a film directed by Jon Amiel, selected as ‘Docudrama of the Year’ and chosen by the BBC as one of the five best ‘Plays for Today’ to celebrate their 50th Anniversary.

A new film version of The Silent Twins is due to be released in 2022, featuring actresses Letitia Wright and Tamara Wilson.

SANE

In 1986, The Times published a series of award-winning investigative articles, The Forgotten Illness, in which she documented the untold stories of the millions of people suffering from schizophrenia and other severe mental illness, which pulled back the curtain on the failure of the Government’s controversial ‘Care in the Community’ policy. In response to the outcry from the public, politicians, lawyers, medical professionals, and families, she founded mental health charity SANE.

Through her network of politicians, businesspeople, academics and donors she has helped raise over £50 million for people with mental illnesses. In 1992, her belief in the healing power of information led her to pioneer SANEline, the first specialist out of hours national mental health helpline, which continues to be open 365 days a year for people with mental health problems, their families, carers, professionals, and the public.

Since its founding, SANE has become one of the most widely recognised, well-respected, and influential mental health charities in the world. Its work and advocacy have triggered debates across the media, politics, international science, and psychiatry, drawing in high-profile people from all walks of life.

She also created the Prince of Wales International Centre for SANE Research, based in Oxford with initial funds from the Xylas shipping family, HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal and The Sultan of Brunei. The vision of the Centre was – and is – to act as a flagship of hope, promoting and hosting multi-disciplinary teams that research the causes and better treatments and therapies for serious mental illness. It was opened by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2003.

She authored and presented Whose Mind is it Anyway?, a two-hour film and debate on BBC 1 about mental health. In 1995, she wrote and presented Circles of Madness, a film for BBC 2 that told the “heartbreaking stories of families and individuals torn apart by their psychiatric conditions.” The film was nominated for the Mental Health Media Awards.

“There are shining examples of what can be done, which not only laid the foundation of contemporary understanding of mental illness but also led directly to the foundation of SANE.” – HRH The Prince of Wales

Media, presenting & appearances

Marjorie is an in-demand TV and radio presenter, contributor, commentator, and panellist over a wide range of subjects, having become known for her ability to humanise complicated issues while retaining a reporter’s rigorous objectivity.

She has been profiled in most of the major media and magazines. She regularly appears on the major national, regional, and international broadcast media outlets, including BBC News, ITV News, Channel 4, Sky News, Netflix, and CNN as the go-to person for comment on mental health. She also appears regularly in the pages of The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Evening Standard, The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, and leading online news websites.

Awards & fellowships

Marjorie was awarded a CBE in 2008 for her services to mental illness after having been given an MBE in 1994.

In 2006, she was selected as one of 16 key achievers who had “made a difference” to the nation’s health at an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. In 2008, she was the only mental health representative to be named as one of the 60 most influential “diamond” people in shaping the NHS’ history to celebrate the NHS’s 60th birthday.

In 1982, she was awarded Campaigning Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards for her “gift in combing compassion with objectivity”. In 1986, she was again named Campaigning Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards.

In 1997, Marjorie was elected an Honorary Fellow at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in recognition of her outstanding service to psychiatry. She remains a Fellow at University College, London; an Honorary Doctor of Science at City University, London; and a Guardian Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford.

She was later named Outstanding Campaigner at the 2016 Women of the Year Awards for her work on behalf of the mentally ill. In 2017, she was appointed an Honorary Member of the World Psychiatric Association.

Social & personal life

In 1974, Marjorie married Polish psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Count Andrzej Skarbek and had three children, Sacha, Stefan, and Maximilian Justin.

The couple later separated, and Marjorie lived with her partner, well-known science writer, founder of The New Scientist, and co-founder of London Weekend Television, Dr. Tom Margerison, and they had a daughter, Sophia Augusta. Tom died from Parkinson’s disease in 2014.

Marjorie remained a close friend and confidante of Antony Armstrong-Jones, the Earl of Snowdon, until his death in 2017.

In May 2021, Marjorie married businessman, entrepreneur and economist John Mills.

What other people say

“Marjorie Wallace turned heads at star-studded parties with her auburn hair and sparkling wit… She has charmed thousands of pounds from Middle Eastern sheikhs and wealthy businessmen to fund research into psychiatric disorders.” – Louise Oswald, The Sun

“Few journalists manage to influence events: most dip into human predicaments, describe them and pass on. But Wallace discovered a rapport with mentally ill people and their suffering families and stuck by them.” – Valerie Grove, The Times

“Marjorie Wallace is a one-off; forceful, imaginative, persistent, visionary, practical and particular … virtues which are real and rare.” – Lord Phillips of Sudbury

“Marjorie is a redoubtable character…and a courageous campaigner.” – Victoria Lambert, The Daily Telegraph

“Single-minded and fearless, reaching for almost impossible targets, she gets results. She has a fierce mission which gleams impressively in her eye.” – Polly Toynbee, The Independent on Sunday

“Marjorie is an extraordinary journalist who never fails to pull out something memorable to the hearts and minds of the public.” – Sir Harold Evans

“A mix of glamour and grit has pervaded Wallace’s eventful life which has included a personal battle against breast cancer and depression.” – James Butcher, The Lancet

“Marjorie Wallace turned heads at star-studded parties with her auburn hair and sparkling wit… She has charmed thousands of pounds from Middle Eastern sheiks and wealthy businessmen to fund research into psychiatric disorders.” – Louise Oswald, The Sun

“There is something of the romantic about her: she loves music, Victorian poetry and ballads. What drives her is not “doing good” but the idea of redemption.” – Emine Saner, The Evening Standard