White, Frances: - "Frances White was born in London. As a small child she lived in Japan where she discovered reading. From then on she lived in books. Semi-educated at various schools, she talked her way into Hertford College, Oxford to read English, and briefly taught before turning towards libraries. After an M.A. in Librarianship at Loughborough University she did research for the British Library then retreated to rural Ireland where she kept goats and began a PhD on Iris Murdoch at Queen s University, Belfast. This was abandoned in favour of motherhood, hens, geese, pigs and gardening. However, her misspent youth reading Iris Murdoch caught up with her in the end and at the age of fifty - a late bloomer - she finally gained a PhD from Kingston University for a thesis on Murdoch s work, written whilst working as a cashier and horticultural buyer for the local supermarket."