Dione Patricia Mary Venables (née Gordon-Finlay, 20 October 1930 – 12 September 2023), also known by her pen name as DG Finlay, was an English novelist and publisher who is probably best known as the founder of The Orwell Society.

Dione Patricia Mary Gordon-Finlay was born prematurely in the Prestwood Hotel at Great Missenden, England on 20 October 1930, the second daughter of Florence (née Gallagher) and engineer-inventor Alan.

[5] Her first attempt at writing, aged 11, featured a hedgehog called Edward Wigg, who was adapted by Jacintha in support of the War Effort as part of the National Savings Movement.

[9] Dione remained buried under rubble with her mother for several hours until they were discovered by rescuers and slowly released using a collapsed Morrison shelter as an escape tunnel.

Following a number of weeks in Beckenham General hospital, the pair were transferred to a flat in Thornton Hall to convalesce within a few miles of Bletchley Park where her father and sister were working.

In addition to scheduled routes to the Southeast Asia, the airline was chartered by the British Government for trooping flights to East Africa during the unrest that flared up as Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda transitioned to independence from Britain.

[14] Dione wrote short articles for newspapers and magazines giving eye-witness accounts of her experiences during those times of great change across Africa and around the world.

[15] She started married life with John Venables by publishing more memories of her experiences in the Middle East and Pakistan, while providing relief flights for refugees in war torn states.

[16][17] Being a naval officer's wife, however, did not come easily to Dione at first,[18] but it wasn't long before the couple got an assignment back to Singapore, where their adopted daughter (Juliet) was born in 1968.

Contributors included Sir Bernard Crick, Gordon Bowker, John Rodden, Liam Hunt, DJ Taylor, Douglas Kerr, Peter Davison, and Orwell's son, Richard Blair.

[42][43] In 2003, Dione Venables started work on creating a memorial to commemorate the loss of fifteen airmen from Australia, America, Britain and Canada who crashed in two separate incidents in the South Downs overlooking Upwaltham.

[47] She leaves a legacy of ten books, dozens of articles and scores of paintings but what she was best known for in the years before her death was her role in preserving the life and works of George Orwell.