My mother, Alison Selford, who has died aged 102, was a journalist and author who began her career writing for the leftwing Daily Worker newspaper before being cured, as she put it, of communism. She then spent a period as a novelist and playwright before returning to journalism, latterly with Euromoney magazine.
Born in Hendon, north-west London, to Winifred (nee Fairfield), a housewife, and Norman Macleod, an Admiralty civil servant, Alison was educated at Westcliff high school for girls in Essex before studying at the Central School of Art and Design in London.
