Haymon , Sylvia Rosen , 1917-1995 , writer

Sylvia Haymon (1917-1995) was born Sylvia Rosen in Norwich on 17 Oct 1917, the daughter of a Jewish master tailor. She was educated at the London School of Economics but did not complete the course, instead marrying Mark Haymon in 1933. During the Second World War she worked in the United States, where she was employed by a New York toyshop as a buyer. She returned with the first of her two daughters to Britain in 1947 where she became a broadcaster, working with Woman's Hour in the early 1950s. She also became a freelance writer for The Lady, The Times and Punch until the late 1960s, writing articles on subjects including the militant suffrage movement at the start of the century. It was at the end of this decade that she began writing children's books, Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1969, and King Monmouth the following year. Subsequently she began to publish crime novels under the name of S T Haymon, the first being Death and The Pregnant Virgin in 1980, followed by Ritual Murde' in 1982, for which she won the Silver Dagger Award. She published seven of these in all, in addition to two volumes of autobiography: Opposite the Cross Keys (1988) and The Quivering Tree (1990). She died, three years after her husband, in Oct 1995.