Biography
Bawden was born in 1925 and raised in Ilford, Essex, in "a rather nasty housing estate that mother despised". Her mother was a teacher and her father a member of the Royal Marines. She was evacuated during World War II to Aberdare, Wales, at age fourteen. She spent school holidays at a farm in Shropshire with her mother and her brothers.
She attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
From 1946 to 1954 Bawden was married to Harry Bawden. They had two sons, Nicholas (who committed suicide in 1981) and Robert. Later she married Austen Kark, a managing director of the BBC World Service; they had a daughter, Perdita, who died in March 2012. She also had two stepdaughters: Cathy lives in New Zealand and Teresa in London.
In 2002 Bawden was badly injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, in which her husband Austen Kark was killed.
Bawden died at her home in north London in August 2012. Her family announced the death on 22 August.
Read more about this topic: Nina Bawden
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