She had been born in Oxford in 1920 and left school at 16 because there was no family money and her father, a tax inspector, did not believe in higher education for women.
She married an army doctor, Ernest Connor Bantry White at 21 and had two daughters, Claire and Jane, and was forced to provide for the whole family after he returned from the Second World War suffering mental illness.
It was while she was working in hospital administration in London that she began writing in the Fifties and many of her novels took place amid the red-tape of the criminal justice system and NHS.
She was made a life peer in 1991 and sat for the Conservative Party where her interventions were often driven by her Anglican faith.
As guest editor of the Radio 4 Today programme at Christmas 2009, she proved an effective interviewer in putting then director general Mark Thompson on the offensive over executive pay and ageism.
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