Nancy Spain was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1917, the great-niece of the legendary Mrs Beeton.
She began her career as a journalist and occasional actor in radio plays. After the Second World War she published a very successful memoir of her time working as a driver and in the press office of the WRNS. She later wrote columns for the Daily Express and She magazine, made many radio and television appearances, and published a series of detective novels.
She and her partner Joan Werner Laurie were killed in a plane crash in 1964.