Rosemary Timperley
Rosemary Timperley was an English author and teacher born on March 20, 1920, in Crouch End, North London. She studied history at King's College, London University, graduating in 1941, and began her career as a teacher at a technical school in Essex. During World War II, she started writing short stories, with her first piece published in 1946. In 1949, Timperley transitioned to a full-time writing career, notably contributing to the magazine Reveille, where she also edited sections under the pseudonym Jane Blythe.
Her writing ranged from short stories, particularly in the ghost and horror genres, to radio and television plays, with her first TV play airing in 1959. Notably, she edited several ghost story anthologies and published works under the name Ruth Cameron. Timperley’s extensive travels inspired some of her novels, and she continued to write prolifically until her death on November 9, 1988. Throughout her life, Timperley engaged with diverse writing forms, leaving a lasting impact on the genres she explored.
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Subject Terms
Rosemary Timperley
Fiction Writer and Playwright
- Born: March 20, 1920
- Birthplace: Crouch End, North London, England
- Died: November 9, 1988
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Rosemary Kenyon Timperley was born in Crouch End, North London, England, on March 20, 1920. Her father, George Kenyon Timperley, was an architect, and her mother, Emily Mary Lethem Timperley, a teacher. Timperley attended Hornsey High School and King’s College, London University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1941. She then became a teacher of English and history at South-East Essex County Technical School in Dagenham, Essex.
During World War II, she worked part time for Kensington’s Citizens’ Advice Bureau and started to submit short stories to newspapers and magazines. Her first sale, “Hot Air and Penelope,” was to Illustrated magazine for its August 10, 1946, issue, and she later sold stories to Reveille and Truth. Timperley left her teaching job in 1949 to join the staff of Reveille. In 1952, she married James McInnes Cameron, who died in 1968. In addition to selling fiction to Reveille, Timperley wrote feature articles and edited the personal advice column (under the pseudonym of Jane Blythe) and the letters to the editor page. She continued to write short fiction, mostly ghost stories, for other publications such as the Evening News, the London Mystery Selection, Male Mag, This Is It, Truth, London Life, Beautiful Britons, and Spick and also began to write novels.
In 1959, Timperley became a full-time writer, although she briefly edited Reveille’s book review column in 1963. She occasionally took jobs such as waitressing, typing, nursing, and modeling as research for her fiction. It was around this time that Timperley began to write for radio and television. She wrote several plays for radio, including Capital Radio’s Moment of Terror, and more than ten of her short stories aired on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Light Program. Her first original play for television, A Card from Alison, was broadcast in October, 1959, and other teleplays were broadcast on Anglia Television.
Timperley continued to write short stories and articles throughout the 1960’s which she sold to magazines such as Red Letter, Reveille, and Good Housekeeping and the newspaper the Sheerness Times-Guardian. She became seriously ill in 1964 and had to spend several months in a hospital. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Timperley’s stories were published in ghost, horror, and science fiction anthologies under her own name and under the pseudonym Ruth Cameron. She edited five volumes in the Barrie and Jenkins series of ghost story anthologies from 1969 through 1973. Timperley traveled extensively, and a trip to Moscow in 1963 inspired her novels They Met in Moscow and Journey with Doctor Godley. She lived most of her adult life in Richmond, a suburb of London, and continued to write until she died on November 9, 1988.