Shirley Mann is a Derbyshire-based journalist who spent most of her career at the BBC. She and went onto make films for organisations such as the Heritage Lottery Fund. Her first novel, Lily's War, was inspired by Shirley's mother, who was a WAAF and her father who was in the Eighth Army. Her second book, Bobby's War is about a young ATA pilot, inspired by the iconic and pioneering figure, Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) pilot Mary Ellis, who she interviewed a few weeks before she passed away.