was dispatched to Austria, working in Vienna and Carinthia on copy for Austrian newspapers, where she met the executioner Albert Pierrepoint. In 1945, she wrote a book as "Anne Damer" with Jack Denton Scott, called Too Lively to Live. In 1948, Symonds was divorced from her husband and applied for a job with the BBC Overseas Service, commissioning talks and making arts and other programmes. She worked on Under Big Ben and the Meet an MP spot for London Calling Europe. She was close to Hugh Gaitskell and Denis Healey. In 1953, she gave birth to Matthew Symonds, son of John Beavan and co-founder of The Independent. He is the father of Carrie Johnson, the wife of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. After retiring from the BBC in 1976, Symonds edited APEX’s journal for Denis Howell and assisted on the quarterly Europe Left, the magazine of the Labour Movement for Europe. She died on 6 February 2017, at the age of 100. References Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford 1916 births 2017 deaths English women journalists 20th-century English women 20th-century English people BBC World Service people English radio presenters Radio presenters from Liverpool Charters Symonds family English centenarians