Alec Beesley

DS was shocked and saddened by the death of her beloved husband and companion, Alec Beesley .

While she was acting at the Everyman Theatre , DS had a brief fling with its founder, Norman MacDermott . In 1927, a few years after she began working at Heal's , she began an...

When she became a successful playwright, DS lost interest in Heal (and in sex altogether, according to her journals). She soon became romantically involved with her friend Alec Beesley . Their relationship was never passionate...

DS 's friend and manager, Alec Beesley (together with Esmé Wynne ), gave her a birthday gift that proved to be an important literary inspiration: a Dalmatian named Pongo.

DS and Alec Beesley , who had been companions for about a decade, were married in a private civil ceremony in Philadelphia.

In the summer of 1969, DS was introduced to a young writer, Julian Barnes , through one of her husband's relatives. She was the first professional writer whom he had met.

With the prospect of war looming, DS and Alec Beesley moved to the United States, where they stayed for thirteen years.

DS and her husband returned to England, where they soon settled back into their seventeenth-century cottage, The Barretts, near Finchingfield in Essex.