Mary Newburn is mother of four adult sons and has a grandaughter, aged two. She and her husband Tim had happy and memorable births, though one involved a surprise for them both…
Having worked with NCT for many years – as an antenatal teacher, policy researcher, editor, advocate for user involvement in maternity services, and the charity’s strategic anbassador, she is now working freelance.
She is passionate about women having a voice, making informed decisions, and having the the opportunity to access maternity services that promote their sense of self and their well-being.
Birth Talk 
Lovely to see your smiling face Mary. You look younger than when we last met – must be 11 years ago now! Good luck with the freelancing, sounds inspiring 😉
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Thank you Sandra! It’s amazing wha a professional photographer can do. There are lots of other pic that don’t look quite so youthful. Remind me where we met and let me know what you are doing now. I’m learning to be more au fait with social media and finding my feet, slowly. Lovely that yours is my first comment.
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We met when I was the Midwifery Recruitment and Retention Project Lead for England, 2003 to 2004. Shout out if you want any Social Media support, I’m a bit of a nerd! 😉
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Oh, and I left UK in January 2005 to practice in NZ lol! returned to UK in March 2013, bringing my kiwi husband with me – we live on a narrowboat, on the Inland Waterways, aiming to sustain ourselves being self-employed (I’m now a Life Coach and a Facepainter – rather different to midwifery, but still birthing in different ways) 😉
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It’s coming back to me… Your name is so familiar. Well, well well. How exciting. Where are you now? Maybe I could hitch a ride sometime. It would be lovely to meet and catch up. (I need to learn to read and correct typos before I press send, quite apart from the more technical stuff.)
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Today Mary, we’re at a place called ‘Etruria’, not far from Stoke-on-Trent. Next weekend we’ll be in Stone, the one after Droitwich! All fairly close if travelling by road. Stone to Droitwich will take four long days by narrowboat! Would be lovely to see you and take you for a canal trip. I’ll message you with my email address (do you have a contact page?) to contact 😉
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You might well wink! It’s all a puzzle still to me and the big fat answer is ‘I don’t know’. If you send it as a comment, I will note it but not approve it to go online. Or you could direct message me on Twitter marynewburn1 or on FB.
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Hi Mary, came across your blog via a young midwife I know who has shared your words of wisdom on Facebook. Lewis and I often think about our NCT days and all the wonderful people we had the pleasure of becoming friends with. Life is a little different for us these days with both of us early retired and having 8 but soon to be 9 grandchildren and family spread around. We spend a lot of time being busier than we ever were at work! lovely to see your happy face.
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Dear Sue, great to be in touch with you and to hear a bit about you, Lewis and the rest of the family! I have one granddaughter, soon to be followed by a second (Aug), so after four boys, having a new generation of girls is interesting! I’m sure there will be more diversity as the other three become fathers, if they do.. Still early days for my Lewis (23) and Owen (21). Robin (36) is living in Sydney with his partner, and teaching primary school year 4, this year. We can’t wait to see them at Christmas. Gavin, Emma and Georgia are just dwn the road effectively (45 mins drive), so we get to see them most weeks, and will be able to help a bit withe the new baby/toddler combo. Such a joy to have a grandchild. Mary
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