[1] Mabel Esther Allan was born at Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsula in Cheshire (now Merseyside).
She published a few short stories in the 1930s, and had longer submissions accepted, but her activities were interrupted by the Second World War.
[5] Although Allan, like many authors of the era, often used the school-book genre, she was a proponent of A.S. Neill, founder of an educational philosophy which promoted freedom and self-discipline in childhood.
[7] Most of her books were standalones but she did pen a few series, such as two series about groups of modern city children: the Wood Street Gang from Liverpool and the boys and girls of Almond House flats who attend Pine Street School.
However, in the second book Drina gets her wish and goes to the fictional Dominick Ballet School at Red Lion Square, London.