Born in Kent, Ida Pollock began writing novels and stories while still at school, setting her first publication, Palanquins and Coloured Lanterns, in 1920's Shanghai. Having worked in London through the Blitz, in 1944 she married Hugh Pollock, the glamorous soldier and publisher who had previously been married to Enid Blyton. After the war Ida started writing again and soon she had acquired five publishers, nine pen-names and a million readers worldwide.