For the sake of her mother's health, the family moved to the country when Dora was seven, and she began school in Chelsfield, near Orpington, Kent,[4] and later joined her older sister at Bromley county school.
When her father became a schoolmaster, Dora followed his example and undertook teacher training at Homerton College, Cambridge.
[3] After World War II she worked occasionally as a teacher, and began writing about schools and country topics for several magazines, including Punch and the Times Educational Supplement.
From 1955 to 1996 Saint wrote a series of novels centered on two fictional villages, Fairacre and Thrush Green.
[5] Saint also wrote two volumes of autobiography, A Fortunate Grandchild (1982) and Time Remembered (1986); the two were issued together in 1995 as Early Days.
The musician Enya has a track on her Watermark album named after Saint's book Miss Clare Remembers, and one on her Shepherd Moons album titled No Holly for Miss Quinn.