Margaret Fay left school at 16 but is the new head of regional development agency One NorthEast.

She talks to North-East Feature Writer of the Year Christen Pears.

JULY was an eventful month for Margaret Fay. Her first grandson was born on the first, and she was appointed chairwoman of One NorthEast on the 31st. But, despite the huge, new responsibilities both at home and at work, she still finds time for a good gossip.

Sipping green tea in her office at Tyne Tees Television, her conversation moves easily from the serious business of regional affairs to babysitting her grandson and somehow ends up being about the unfathomable nature of men. She has a way of making you feel at ease and by the time our hour-long interview is over, I feel I've known her for years. I've received some sound relationship advice too.

It's her way with people, combined with a direct, no-nonsense approach, that has taken her from 16-year-old school leaver to chairman of One NorthEast.

Margaret, who is currently managing director of Tyne Tees, will take over from current One NorthEast chairman John Bridge in December. She is both excited and a little apprehensive.

"The public sector is quite a different world from running a business like Tyne Tees where you have autonomy on a day-to-day basis. Also, after 22 years here, I'm very comfortable with what I'm doing. I suspect this new role will take me totally out of my comfort zone. But I like a challenge."

I don't doubt her. Behind the neat, blonde bob, smart black dress and pink nail varnish there is a formidable businesswoman.

Margaret left South Shields Grammar School at 16 against the advice of her teachers, thinking of nothing beyond earning her own money and being more grown-up.

"My boyfriend, who was later my husband, was six years older than I was. He was already terribly grown-up, as were our friends. I was the only one still at school and that did sway me - not much because I didn't really want to stay on anyway.

"I don't have any regrets about what I did but it's not what I would recommend people do now. In 1965, there weren't many people who went to university, and very few of them were women. These days, it's the norm and I think it would have been far more difficult for me to get where I am without a degree."

Her first job was with Post Office Savings in Durham but it wasn't until 1981, when she moved to Tyne Tees, that she began to realise her potential. She joined the company as a senior accounts clerk without any ambitions, but she rose through the ranks, becoming managing director in 1997.

'I came to the job because it was £1,200 more than I was earning in my previous job. I was divorced and had an eight-year-old son and that was a lot of money at the time. I didn't have any grand scheme. It was purely for monetary reasons!"

Three years later, she applied for her first management role as house services manager. There were 13 applicants for the job, only two of whom were women. Staff were running a book in the canteen and Margaret was the rank outsider. "I think most people lost money on that bet," she chuckles.

Anyone who had doubts about her appointment had them quickly dispelled. Arriving at work on her first day, she discovered a lorry had crashed into the gas and electricity mains.

"We had a major emergency on our hands. It was a baptism of fire - literally - but I managed to get everything sorted out. I dealt with it the way I dealt with everything else. I used to ask myself what I would do at home and magnify it. I genuinely think it was a sort of commonsense approach that was needed. I'm just a no-nonsense, what you see is what you get, tough as old boots, type."

But even a woman as forthright as Margaret experienced problems trying to make her way in what was essentially a man's world. She had been in her first management post at Tyne Tees for a few months and was putting together the budget for the following year when she realised the 11 male supervisors who all worked under her were earning more than she was.

"I didn't think that was right and I went to the MD and queried it. He said two things: that I had come from a clerical grade so I was at a lower starting point and that it was a fact of life that women earned less than men and I would just have to get on with it.

"That's what I did. I had made my point but I wasn't going to kick up a fuss. It wasn't going to aid my career progress. I had been given a marvellous opportunity and I just got on with it."

Margaret's career was beginning to take off but she also had her son, Graeme, to look after. Fortunately, her sister and brother-in-law lived in the flat upstairs and were on hand to help.

"I was more lucky than most people. I used to go to work and he would pop his dressing gown and slippers on and go upstairs for breakfast. When I came home in the evening, it was usually in time for us to all sit down for a family dinner. I had total support and I couldn't have done it otherwise. I don't know how career women today manage."

Graeme is now married with his own son, but his mum still experiences the occasional conflict between her work commitments and her home life. Since becoming MD at Tyne Tees, she has established a network of contacts across the region and is on the board of a host of organisations, including Darlington Building Society and Teesside University. Inevitably, this means spending two or three evenings a week at dinners and events.

"It can be hard work. Most of the other chief executives have wives and partners who look after things at home but I have to do all the domestic side as well. But my main problem is trying to keep my weight down. It's all very well having all these meals if you're a 6ft tall man but I end up living on the Weightwatchers menu for the rest of the week."

Margaret's partner, David Ellis, is chief executive of a shipping company in Cardiff. The couple met five years ago, just after she became MD at Tyne Tees - a time, she says, when she "needed a relationship like a hole in the head". But despite the distance and heavy work commitments on both sides, it works well.

"I think if he was living up here he would get sick of me being out all the time, so it's good in that sense. We see each other most weekends. I actually spend most of my time at football matches entertaining advertising clients but fortunately, David's a football fanatic."

Her appointment to One NorthEast will present a new set of challenges and although the two aren't linked, she says she will be retiring from Tyne Tees next year, when she turns 55.

"I'd always planned to retire when I was 55. I've been very happy here and I'll miss it but there are plenty of other things to keep me occupied. Obviously there's One NorthEast but I've got my grandson too and I absolutely dote on him - far more than I thought I would. I want to spend time with him too."

I have no doubt she will combine her new career with being a grandmother as successfully as she combined her former one with motherhood.