21 Facts About Stella Rimington

Dame Stella Rimington was born on 13 May 1935 and is a British author and former Director General of MI5, a position she held from 1992 to 1996.

Stella Rimington was the first female DG of MI5, and the first DG whose name was publicised on appointment.

In 1993, Rimington became the first DG of MI5 to pose openly for cameras at the launch of a brochure outlining the organisation's activities.

Stella Rimington's father got a job as chief draughtsman at a steel works in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, and the family moved there.

Stella Rimington described living through the Barrow Blitz as a small child, and becoming claustrophobic into adulthood, needing an exit route from any situation.

Stella Rimington was educated at Croslands Convent School after spending some time in Wallasey.

When her father got a job in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, the family moved to the Midlands, where Stella Rimington attended Nottingham High School for Girls.

Stella Rimington spent her last summer of secondary school working as an au pair in Paris, before enrolling at the University of Edinburgh in 1954 to study English.

In 1963, she married John Stella Rimington and moved to London, where she successfully applied for a position at the India Office Library.

In 1967, after two years in India, Stella Rimington was asked to assist one of the First Secretaries at the High Commission with his office work.

Stella Rimington agreed, and when she began, discovered that he was the representative in India of the British Security Service.

Between 1969 and 1990, Stella Rimington worked in all three branches of the Security Service: counter espionage, counter subversion, and counter terrorism.

The New Statesman and The Independent had obtained and published covert photographs of her, despite which Stella Rimington oversaw a public relations campaign to improve the openness of the Service and increase public transparency.

Stella Rimington was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1996 New Year Honours.

On 5 October 2009 the BBC broadcast a statement from Stella Rimington who claimed that certain MI5 files collected by her predecessors had been destroyed, but without clarifying whether this took place during her appointment as Director General, or as part of her later involvement with the Archives Task Force.

In 2009, Stella Rimington received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Social Science from Nottingham Trent University in recognition of her support for openness about the work of the secret service.

Stella Rimington was chair of the judges for the 2011 Man Booker Prize.

Stella Rimington responded during her speech at the Booker ceremony with a "diatribe" in which she compared British literary critics to the KGB.

In 1984 they separated, with Stella Rimington retaining custody of their two daughters.

Stella Rimington commented "It's a good recipe for marriage, I'd say: split up, live separately, and return to it later".

Stella Rimington's heroine is 34-year-old an MI5 intelligence officer, Liz Carlyle, hunting down a terrorist cell.