Dorothy Laird

Born and brought up at Hurlet between Glasgow and Paisley - her father was an architect and her disabled mother a painter - Dorothy was unconventional from her schooldays when she sought both refuge and adventure in the library. By the age of 21 she had published her first novel, Double Cherry, a well-received romantic tale, and was contributing freelance articles to the Glasgow Herald; but the first hint of the colourful life she was to lead came when in her early twenties she spent three years sailing around the world as a crew member on one of the last commercial, unpowered, square-rigged ships, the three-masted Finnish barque, Penang.

She made news in The Herald in 1938 when the Penang was dismasted off Tasmania. The report which describes her as ''Miss Dorothy Laird, daughter of a Glasgow architect, and a frequent contributor to our Women's Page'', refers to her as a passenger. Even by the broadsheet standards of the day it was understatement to the point of absurdity. An extremely feisty character, she had travelled to Finland as a paying passenger on a sailing ship, but soon mucked in with the crew, who were short-handed. When she joined Penang for a round-the-world trip, she signed on as a deckboy - and was later promoted to ordinary seaman.

The seamanship she learned would lead to the distinction of her being the only woman with a Board of Trade coastal yachtmaster's certificate, but more immediately the voyage provided her with material for a steady stream of articles for Blackwood's and Chambers magazines. The power of those accounts brought her an avid following of readers, among them Captain Martin Lee, president of the British section of the International Association of Cape Horners - the dwindling band of those who have sailed round Cape Horn as crew on a deep-water, square-rigged vessel - and of which Dorothy Laird was vice-president. He recalled that ''in a series of graphic and glittering pieces she encapsulated the sometimes commonplace, often supremely evocative aspects of life in the hard-driven world of the last of the windjammers. She brought to life the complex and competent way in which the captain and crew

managed this fine barque and one of her pieces about the loading and carriage of guano from a godforsaken island - Nossi Be - in the Indian Ocean is a valuable primary source of historical material.''

By the time Dorothy reached home, war was imminent, although with no radio aboard the Penang they had remained blissfully unaware of the crisis in Europe. During the war she put her knowledge of sailing, sailors and Swedish to good use, first in charge of the crew department of the Glasgow shipowners P Henderson and Co (of which she later wrote the history) and then in the Mercantile Marine office, a branch of the Ministry of Shipping, in Glasgow.

She volunteered for the Wrens and was sent to the Naval attache's office in Stockholm. That involved flying from RAF Leuchars across German-occupied territory in Norway at the Mosquito aircraft's maximum height to avoid the flak and then descending at high speed into Alranda airport. ''I was sick into my new hat,'' became one of the sayings friends forever associate with her.

When the war ended, she became the shipping correspondent for The Glasgow Herald and the Bulletin and it was in that capacity that she met shipowner John Carr, who became her husband. On her marriage she moved to London and because ''you can't write about your husband's job'', she became London correspondent of the Scottish Field. It was in that capacity that she developed an interest in the Royal Family and how it was evolving in the modern world.

In the course of writing many articles and a few short books on members of the Royal Family she discovered there was no basic reference book on the life of the Queen. Having decided to fill the gap, she was given permission - to her surprise - by the Palace to write a biography. With access to courtiers and staff, she interviewed 300 people to write How the Queen Reigns, a great publishing success in 1959. It was followed in 1961 by an account of the Queen's visit to India and Pakistan and five years later by her major work, a biography of the Queen Mother - the first to be authorised by its subject - for which Dorothy Laird was given then unprecedented access to the Queen Mother's household and photographs. A later book about Princess Anne, intended to mark her 40th birthday in 1990, fell foul of a more critical attitude to the Royal Family. It failed to tackle the problems in her marriage

and did not find a publisher.

Dorothy Laird, however, had already embarked on a new career. Having written several books about horses, at the age of 52 she took her first full-time job - with the Racing Information Bureau. She was features editor for eight years, writing hundreds of features and news stories under a clutch of male pseudonyms. She helped set up the Lady Jockeys' Association in 1972 when women were first granted jockeys' licences and was honorary secretary until 1990, when she was made president. When they merged with the Amateur Jockeys' Association in 1996, the battle for equality having been won, Dorothy Laird became joint vice-president.

A race for lady jockeys was held to honour her 80th birthday in 1992 and an annual trophy is awarded in her name. She wrote her last piece for The Herald in 1981. As part of a series on marriage for the women's page, she provided her own insight into the marriage of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh and deemed it a successful partnership.

Her husband died in 1996 and she is survived by her son and daughter.

Jennifer Cunningham