Her father, Leon Alfred Mayer Engel, was a concert pianist and a travelling sales representative in embroideries.

Her mother, Ethel Maud Engel, was originally Irish catholic but converted to Judaism, her husband's faith, on their marriage.

[2] Upon leaving school, she enrolled in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force in April 1940, though underage, working in the RAF Fighter Command control room and on radar.

[3] She found the Communist Party an ideologically- and socially-attractive space as an activist and a woman not wishing to return to a purely domestic role post-war.

[2] She met her second husband, Edmund 'Eddie' Frow, in 1953 at a day school on labour history in Sussex, and they married in 1961.

[9] The library was originally the personal book collection of the couple, to which scholars or students of labour history could access for free.

[4] The Library is regarded as one of Britain's most important collections on working class history, with more than 30,000 rare books, pamphlets, photographs and other materials.