Honor Tracy is the pseudonym of Lilbush Wingfield (October 19, 1913 – June 13, 1989), who was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 writer, born at Bury St. Edmunds

Bury St. Edmunds

Bury St Edmunds is a market town in the county of Suffolk, England, and formerly the county town of West Suffolk. It is the main town in the borough of St Edmundsbury and known for the ruined abbey near the town centre...

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

.

Tracy joined the British Women's Auxiliary Air Force from 1939 to 1941, working in the intelligence departement, then she was attached to the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, from 1941 to 1945, as a Japanese specialist. She worked for The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

 newspaper as a columnist and as a long-time foreign correspondent. She wrote also for The Sunday Times and for the British Broadcasting Corporation. Tracy is best known as a travel writer. Her novels satirize British-Irish relations and Ireland itself with wit and occasionally bitterness. Her best-known novels are The Straight and Narrow Path (1956), The Quiet End of Evening (1972), and The Ballad of Castle Reef (1979). Her best-known travel book is Winter in Castille (1973).

She settled in Achill Island

Achill Island

Achill Island in County Mayo is the largest island off the coast of Ireland, and is situated off the west coast. It has a population of 2,700. Its area is . Achill is attached to the mainland by Michael Davitt Bridge, between the villages of Gob an Choire and Poll Raithní . A bridge was first...

, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 and died in 1989 in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Betjeman hoax

A N Wilson

A. N. Wilson

Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views...

's biography of Sir John Betjeman, published in August 2006, included a letter to Tracy which purported to be by Betjeman detailing a previously unknown love affair. They had worked together at the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 during the war. The letter turned out to be a hoax on Wilson, containing an acrostic

Acrostic

An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. As a form of constrained writing, an acrostic can be used as a mnemonic device to aid memory retrieval. A famous...

spelling out an insulting message to him.

Travel works

Her travel works include:

• Kakemono: A Sketchbook of Postwar Japan (1950)
• Spanish Leaves (1964)
• Winter in Castile (1973)
• The Heart of England (1983)

Novels

Tracy's novels include:

• The Deserters (1954)
• The Straight and Narrow Path (London, Methuen / New York, Random House 1956)
• Silk Hats and No Breakfast (Random House, 1957)
• The Prospects Are Pleasing (1958)
• A Number of Things (Methuen / Random House, 1960)
• A Season of Mists (Methuen / Random House, 1961)
• The First Day of Friday (Methuen / Random House, 1963)
• Men at Work (Methuen / Random House, 1967)
• The Beauty of the World (Methuen / Random House, 1967)
• Settled in Chambers (Methuen / Random House 1968)
• Butterflies of the Province (New York, Random House /London, Eyre Methuen, 1970)
• The Quiet End of Evening ( Random House / Eyre Methuen, 1972)
• The Ballad of Castle Reef (1979)