Synopsis
Marjorie Sykes was born in 1905 and brought up in a coal-mining area in South Yorkshire, England, where her father was the village teacher. She graduated with first-class Honours in English from Cambridge University and went to India to teach at Bentinck School for Girls in Madras in 1928. She learned Tamil and Hindi and very soon became Principal of the school where she introduced many new educational ideas. She became a Quaker in Madras.