Taylor was born Margaret Martha Gertrude Taylor on December 5, 1920. Her parents were Herbert Taylor, an English businessman, and Anne-Marie Le Coq. Margaret had one sister and two brothers. The whole family lived in the same house as Anne Marie's mother, Taylor's grandmother. Peggy was sent to a
convent upon reaching adolescence, but her father had gone to
Yorkshire to work for the British government during the Second World War and sent for the family soon after his arrival. Anne Marie, who could not leave her ailing mother, gave her children 9000 francs and sent them on a boat to
Falmouth. Peggy and her siblings received word through the
Swiss Red Cross that their mother was interned at a concentration camp near the German border. == Life at war ==