Personal life Ida Cook was born on 24 August 1904 in
Sunderland,
County Durham, England. With her elder sister
Louise Cook (1901–1991), she attended
The Duchess's School in Alnwick and later took civil service jobs in London. Both sisters developed a passionate interest in opera. In 1965 the Cook sisters were honoured as
Righteous among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel. In 2010 the British Government named each of them a
British Hero of the Holocaust.
Writing career In 1936 Ida published her first romance novels as Mary Burchell. During her career she wrote 112 romances for
Mills & Boon, later re-edited by Harlequin Books, including the famous
Warrender Saga, a series about the opera and concert-hall world. She incorporated many famous operas (
Otello,
Eugene Onegin and
Carmen, among others) into the
Warrender series plots. She wrote in the Romantic Novelists' Association's newsletter: In 1950 she published her autobiography,
We Followed Our Stars. In 2008 it was re-issued, re-edited and expanded as
Safe Passage. Cook was the subject of
This Is Your Life in 1956 (its first series) when she was surprised by
Eamonn Andrews at the
BBC Television Theatre. She
ghost-wrote Tito Gobbi's autobiography,
My Life (1979). == Legacy ==