Dame Stella Rimington, the first female director general of the MI5, has died at the age of 90.
The former secret service chief, died 'surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath', her family has announced.
Dame Rimington, born Stella Whitehouse, was welcomed into a warring world in south London on May 13, 1935, before being moved to Essex, and then to Barrow-in-Furness. due to the dangers of living in the capital city during the Second World War .
After completing her studies in archive administration at the University of Liverpool in 1958, she became an archivist a the County Record Office in Worcester a year later, before marrying her husband John Rimington.
And it was their decision to move to India after he was offered a position as the First Secretary (Economic) for the British High Commission in New Delhi, which would eventually lead to her history-defining career in the shadows.
