Edna May Edmunds was born in the Forest of Dean and educated at Bells Grammar School, Coleford, Gloucestershire, where she was the first pupil to gain a place at Oxford University.
Her father, Edward Edmunds, a crane driver, threatened to send her to work in a pin factory if she did not apply herself to reading.
She then trained as a teacher and married Healey in 1945, following his military service in World War II.
Although she began her writing career relatively late in life, her books were critically acclaimed and sometimes best-sellers, including biographies of successful women in powerful positions.
[4] In 1993, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature[5] Edna Healey has one entry in the 8th Edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations where she says of Margaret Thatcher, "She has no hinterland; in particular she has no sense of history.