Mary maps out future as top cartographer

But the cartographer from Kingswinford has made a name for herself as one of the country's top map designers and says her skills are in big demand.

The 58-year-old who lives in Highwood Close grew up in Stonehaven in Scotland and says she had an interest in geography from an early age.

"I loved geography and thought I would become a teacher one day," says Mary.

"I studied geography at Aberdeen University in the 1960s and in those days we were hippies and into the music scene.

"So when I visited a teacher training college I saw the people dressed in tweed and thought 'this is not what I want to be'."Mary's tutor Michael Wood was a world-famous cartographer and gave her the idea of becoming a map designer.

"I love maps because they allow you to explore places without it costing you any money," she says.

"Every map is different and I like to get the information over to the reader so they can easily understand it.

"Maps have to be clear and attractive and I love to make them more user-friendly."

Mary did a post-graduate course in cartography at Glasgow University and went into the world of map publishing with Pergamon and Press in Oxford.

"I worked in Oxford for a few years before working in Henley-on-Thames where I met my partner Graham Fisher who was from Kingswinford," says Mary who has two children Ben, aged 26, and Samantha, 22.

"At that time I was doing a map about canals and rivers and Graham was working for the Inland Waterways."

Mary says one of the first maps she created was of Morocco and since then she has longed to visit. "When you create a map you have to do a lot of research about the place and in those days, when you didn't have the internet, it was quite tough," she says.

"I fell in love with the idea of going to Morocco and in June this year I am at last actually going. "The first map I did was an AA road map of England and I did a lot of work on an Atlas for the Middle East and maps for school children."

Mary's most recent map The Dynamic World beat off stiff competition from as far away as Russia to secure the top accolade as Best Wall Map at the recent International Map Trade Association (IMTA) Awards.

The map shows world-wide seismic activity and geomorphic hotspots and places at risk from climate change.

Within weeks of its launch it was widely adopted as a standard school reference.

At the same time production of Cartography, an introduction, which Mary helped design is already available in the UK and is being launched in America.

"This will help encourage newcomers to take a closer look at the profession which, through things like sat navs and smart phones, is having an increasing impact on all of our lives," says Mary. "The Dynamic World map came about after the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004 and it records the biggest and deadliest earthquakes.

"However, maps are constantly changing and when this one went to print there was the earthquake in China and so almost straight away it had to be updated."

Mary was awarded the MBE for services to cartographic design in the New Year's Honours of 2004 and is immediate-Past President of the British Cartographic Society and serves on numerous other committees and boards.

"When people think of a cartographer they imagine someone stiff and dull doing a lot of drawing," she says. "It used to be like that but now, thanks to computers, everyone can get a programme which will allow them to draw a map.

"However, it takes me around two years to create a map because there is so much research to be done to make sure everything is correct, from spelling to the population of a town. A lot of the maps I create are bespoke for each customer and one I have done recently had the shipping lines on it."

Mary says she loves to get engrossed in the maps that she creates.

"I love to find out about each country, city, town and village," she says. "However, it is a shock when you come across a familiar town in another part of the world.

"I have written about Ludlow in Vermont, Worcester in Massachusetts and even Tipton in Indiana."