By her own account, Beno te Groult was a late-bloomer as an author and feminist. She was in her 40's when she first began writing and in her 50's when she embraced feminism.

She immediately proved to be a prolific writer and an ardent activist. She wrote Salt on my Skin when she was 65. Married four times, she died in 2016 aged 96.

After hard times and odd jobs as a lone parent, Fay Weldon became one of the top advertising copywriters of her generation.

She moved to TV drama (writing the pilot episode of the iconic series Upstairs, Downstairs) then turned to novels - including the classic The Life and Loves of a She Devil and The Cloning of Joanna May.

A sequel to her acclaimed Love and Inheritance trilogy, Before the War, was published in 2017. Fay's been made a CBE for services to literature and she's currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.