Mary Evans was born at Whitbourne her family home in Herefordshire. The 6th of 7 children she grew up at Whitbourne and, apart from time at boarding school, lived there until the outbreak of the Second World War.
During the war she went to work at a Rover factory in Birmingham making parts for Aircraft engines and became a shop steward. After about a year this was brought to a halt when she contracted TB and left to convalesce at Whitbourne.
After the war she felt guided to work with The Oxford Group (Moral Re-Armament). It was through this she met her husband Ronald Mann who she married in June 1953 initially travelling, mainly in Europe, in the course of their work with MRA. After the birth of her son, John, in 1957, Mary was mainly either at her family home at Whitbourne or the MRA centre at Caux plus some travelling with MRA (with and without John).
