Born Margaret Edith Newman on 21 June 1926 in Harrow, Middlesex, UK, she was the eldest daughter of Marjory Edith (Donald), a former teacher, and Bernard Newman, author of fiction and non-fiction books, traveller, lecturer and an authority on spies.
She then won a scholarship to St Hugh's College, Oxford, and studied Modern History there from 1944 to 1947.
[5] As well as writing, she worked as a teacher in Egypt and England, from 1947 to 1950; as editor at King's Messenger children's magazine in London, from 1950 to 1955; and as adviser at the Citizen's Advice Bureau in Twickenham, Middlesex, from 1962 to 1970.
Under her married name, Margaret Potter, she published children's fiction, usually focusing on a young central character who was sometimes unwise and often naughty, but who always made the effort to be sensible.
After 1977 she wrote historical novels under the pseudonym Anne Melville, including the Lorimer saga.