The toy shop, which Maggie has been running in Bridbury for thirty years, has caused her to remain a child herself. While her husband is being as important as possible as the town mayor, she cherishes her wooden carts and locomotives, her metal spinning tops and the dolls in their little pink dresses. She often plays with them herself when there’s no one to see. Anything that she is unable to buy, she designs herself and has made by the smith Christopher Lambert, who gets a lot of pleasure from doing so.

She is particularly interested in dolls’ clothes. During long winter evenings she and her friend Annie Brent from "Annie's Boutique" sew there own designs by the light of oil lamps, precisely as they want them to be.  Her seven children are her biggest buyers. They account for almost one quarter of the children of the "St. Joseph Primary School".

The teacher, miss July Lewisham says they are the best behaved children ever to have attended the school. But despite the busy activities of Geoffrey and Maggie, Sunday is always reserved for the family. Then they collect their horse, which is stabled with the farrier Frank Cobham, and go into the countryside in the cart. There they have a picnic, usually with Caroline and Jack Croydon and their three daughters. Caroline always brings a sweet surprise for all ten children from her sweet shop.