[1] She is best known for her role in the 1945 David Lean film Brief Encounter in which she played Beryl Walters, a girl who works in the railway station cafe.
Because she was small for her age, during World War II she portrayed children and young women.
At 17 she appeared in Pink String and Sealing Wax at the Duke of York's Theatre and remembered performing while doodlebugs flew overhead.
While on the West End stage she was spotted by David Lean and Noël Coward and cast for the part of Beryl in Brief Encounter.
[3] Barton lives in Dorset, where she runs a tea room, and still receives many letters relating to Brief Encounter.