Obituary: Shirley Conran, author

Dame Shirley Conran famously said that life was too short to stuff a mushroom, and the English designer, writer and entrepreneur packed plenty into her 91 years. Born in Middlesex in 1932, Shirley Pearce worked as a model and used the income to train as an artist. While studying painting at Chelsea Polytechnic she met and fell in love with Terence Conran, then a coffee-bar owner but the future owner of the Habitat furnishings chain. Shirley Conran turned to design herself, specialising in fabrics. The couple divorced in 1962 and Conran switched to journalism, firstly with The Observer and then the Daily Mail. In 1970, Conran was struck with a debilitating illness, later diagnosed as myalgic encephalopathy, which plagued her for the remainder of her life.

In 1975 Conran drew together various strands she had explored in daily journalism and released Superwoman, a bestseller which spawned several sequels. While those books did well, it was her 1982 "bonkbuster", Lace, which made Conran’s fortune. A racy tale full of articulate heroines, it sold in its millions and was made into a wildly successful mini series. Further novels in the same vein followed and Conran became a fixture on rich-lists thereafter. In her later years, Conran became a campaigner and philanthropist, devoting millions to many causes but notably to Maths Action, an organisation devoted to promoting females in mathematics. Conran became Dame Shirley in late 2023. She died on May 9, aged 91. — Agencies