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Dame Stella was born in 1935 and educated at
Nottingham High School for Girls and Edinburgh University.
After gaining a postgraduate diploma in the Study of Records
and the Administration of Archives at Liverpool University,
she worked in the Worcester County Record Office and the India
Office Library, London.
In 1965 she accompanied her husband on a posting
to the British High Commission in New Delhi. While in India,
she worked part-time for the Security Service which, at that
time, had an office in New Delhi. On her return to the UK
in 1969, she joined the Security Service as a full-time employee.
She worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities:
counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism;
she became a director of all three branches.
In 1992 she was appointed Director General of
MI5 and remained in the post for the next four years.
Dame Stella retired from the Service in April
1996 and took up appointments as a non-executive director
of Marks & Spencer Plc, The BG Group Plc and an Associate
Director of CPS. She was previously Chairman of the Institute
of Cancer Research and Trustee of the Royal Marsden Hospital
NHS Trust.
Until 2001, Dame Stella was Honorary Air Commodore
of 7006 (VR) Intelligence Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force
and a Trustee of the RAF Museum. She is also a Governor of
Town Close House Preparatory School in Norwich. She has two
grown-up daughters and a grand-daughter.
She has received honorary degrees from Nottingham
and Exeter universities and was elected Alumna of the Year
by Edinburgh University in 1994.
Dame Stella was made a Dame Commander of the
Order of the Bath in the 1996 New Year Honours List
As an author her publications include:
'Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General
of MI5', 'Intelligence, Security and the Law' and more recently
Dame Stella has turned to the realm of fiction with two novels,
'At Risk' and 'Secret Asset'.
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