National Velvet
Enid Bagnold was born in Kent in 1889. Brought up in Jamaica, she later went to art school in London. She served as a nurse and a driver in the First World War. She married Sir Roderick Jones in 1920 and moved with him to Rottingdean in Sussex. A keen horsewoman, she wrote National Velvet the story of Velvet Brown, the girl who rides in the Grand National, in 1935. The author of poetry, plays and novels for children and adults, she died in 1981.