Charity founder honoured as Lord Snowdon affair is exposed

AN award-winning investigative journalist and founder of a mental health charity was honoured with a CBE from the Queen yesterday - in the week she confessed to a long-running love affair with Lord Snowdon.

Marjorie Wallace who lives in Highgate, has been unwillingly thrust into the spotlight by revelations in the Sunday Times that she was Lord Snowdon's lover. Speaking to the Ham&High she said the story was published as a result of "a much betrayed situation."

The secret relationship with Princess Margaret's former husband blossomed after they spent 17 years working together on the Sunday Times magazine.

The revelations will also be featured in a new biography of Lord Snowdon by Anne de Courcy.

The campaigner, who is 64 and a mother of four, is still technically married to Count Andrzej Skarbek, but for the last 24 years she has been living with London Weekend Television founder Tom Margerison, whom she has been nursing through Parkinson's disease for the last 12 years. The seasoned campaigner received the CBE on Wednesday for her services to mental health, having been chief executive of SANE since 1986.

She has long championed the rights of the disabled and those with mental health problems. "It's great to see mental illness, which is still so unfashionable, up there with the celebrities in the honours list,'' she said.

"It is not so much an accolade for me or the charity but for the people who inspired me when I founded SANE and who continue to keep it going. It is their courage in fighting mental pain day in and day out which should have recognition.

"I don't feel much self pride. I really didn't do this for honours. I wouldn't still be on the front line if I was just interested in honours."

As chief executive of SANE, Ms Wallace has raised £6million for The Prince of Wales International Centre for research and set up the country's first national mental health helpline.