'Margaret Wharton's parents were highly literate, and with their encouragement she entered a teaching training college in 1936, but they taught her nothing about sex: "Though we read books like 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and 'Hatter's Castle' both dealing with defloration of innocence and an ultimate baby, we drew no parallels and made no application to ourselves. I even read Radclyffe Hall's classic story of lesbianism, The Well of Loneliness, without having the faintest idea of what it was about'.