Mavis Doriel Hay (1894-1979), who in early life lived in north London, was a novelist, who fleetingly lit up the golden age of British crime fiction. She attended St Hilda's, Oxford, around about the same time as Dorothy L Sayers was at Somerville.

She published only three detective novels, 'Murder Underground' (1934), 'Death on the Cherwell' (1935) and 'The Santa Klaus Murder' (1936). All three titles were well received on publication.

She was also an expert on rural handicraft and wrote several books on the subject including 'Rural Industries of England and Wales' with co-author Helen Elizabeth Fitzrandolph.

In 1929, she married her co-author's brother Archibald Menzies Fitzrandolph, a member of a wealthy and influential family of loyalist Canadians.

Archibald joined the RAF but was killed in a flying accident in 1943, one of a number of tragedies that struck Mavis. One of her brothers was killed aged 19 when his ship was sunk during the Battle of Jutland in 1916, her youngest sibling was killed when his Tiger Moth crashed in a Malayan jungle in 1939 and in 1940 a third brother lost his life working on the notorious Thailand-Burma railway after being captured by the Japanese.

When she set aside her mystery novels, Mavis took up a role as a researcher for the Rural Industries Bureau, which was established to encourage craft industries in deprived areas.

She was said to be so well-connected that she was able to arrange exhibitions in the homes of the aristocracy, connections to which had probably come about from one of Archibald's cousins marrying Sir John Dashwood and the fact that the cousin then became a lady-in-waiting at the court of King George V.

Her final book, 'Quilting' was published in 1972, just seven years before her death, which occurred in the village of Box in Gloucestershire.

Gerry Wolstenholme
July 2015