[1] She was the only child from her father's second marriage, and until the age of 11, lived in a mansion in the Grünewald, now the British Ambassador's Berlin residence.
[2] She was educated at a progressive boarding school in England, and earned a degree in modern languages from Newnham College, Cambridge.
[1][2] After the war, she was a member of the Cambridge Ladies ski team, shared a London flat with Mary Blewitt, and worked in advertising, coming up with the slogan, "All the Boy Scouts at their Jamborees/eat lashings of Batchelors wonderful peas.
[2] She was an early advocate for the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Alan Hollinghurst.
[1] She died on 12 November 2013, of heart failure, at her flat in Eaton Square, London, and was survived by her two daughters.