Flora Robson was the daughter of a Scots marine surveyor, and was born in South Shields, at 11 Village Terrace, opposite Westoe Village. The family moved on to Palmer's Green in London, where Flora grew up. She was too tall and not pretty enough to be a conventional leading lady, but she had a beautiful speaking voice. She went to the equivalent of RADA and had a long and distinguished stage career, particularly in Shaw and Ibsen, ending with a wonderful Miss Prism in The Importance of being Earnest at the age of 73. Her film career did not really blossom, but she played Queen Elizabeth I in Fire over England (1931). Although she confided that she was doomed to play a line of tortured spinsters, she was engaged to Tyrone Guthrie (who eventually married his cousin Judith), and there were romantic friendships with Robert Donat and Paul Robeson. She never married, however.