[2] She began writing music and arrangements in her teens during World War II when assisting with choirs at the local church.

As a Junior Exhibitioner she studied piano with Fiona Addie, Muriel Dale, and Sadie MacCormack, and cello with Alison Dalrymple at the Royal Academy of Music, but left school in 1947 and took a job as a filing clerk.

She continued at the Royal Academy in 1949, studying piano with York Bowen, cello with Alison Dalrymple, and voice with Jean McKenzie-Grieve.

She also worked as a sessions singer with London ensembles,[3][4] and in light entertainment with celebrities including Cliff Richard, Harry Secombe, Cilla Black, The Two Ronnies (with whom she appeared on television conducting "The Plumstead Ladies Male Voice Choir")[5] and on Top of the Pops.

[9] Her best known song is perhaps 'Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience', one of three Charles Causley settings for children's voices collected under the title Union Street in 1971).