Penny Junor is an English journalist and author.

Education

Junor was educated at the independent Benenden School

Benenden School

Benenden School is an independent boarding school for girls in Kent, England. It is located in Benenden in the Kentish countryside, between Cranbrook and Tenterden....

 in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

 and read History at St Andrew's University

University of St Andrews

The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...

, but left in her second year to get married.

Career

Junor has worked for the Evening Standard

Evening Standard

The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...

and a column for Private Eye

Private Eye

Private Eye is a fortnightly British satirical and current affairs magazine, edited by Ian Hislop.Since its first publication in 1961, Private Eye has been a prominent critic and lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency,...

lasted five years.

Best known for her books on the British Royal Family

British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...

, she has written biographies of Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...

 (1982) and Charles, Prince of Wales

Charles, Prince of Wales

Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...

 (1987 and 1998), and Charles and Diana: Portrait of a Marriage (1991). The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor followed in 2005. Her work on the Waleses "alienated" both of them and she reportedly considers the experience the worst of her career.

Her other books include works on Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

 (1983), actor Richard Burton

Richard Burton

Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...

 (1986), John Major

John Major

Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...

 (1993) and Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

, Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, and Me (2007), the co-authored memoir of Pattie Boyd

Pattie Boyd

Patricia Anne "Pattie" Boyd is an English model and photographer, and the former wife of both George Harrison and Eric Clapton...

 a former wife of both musicians. Junor assisted Sir Cliff Richard in writing the number one best selling My Life, My Way which sold over 250,000 copies (2008) and Shaun Ellis

Shaun Ellis (wolf researcher)

Shaun Ellis is an English animal researcher who is notable for living among wolves, and for adopting a pack of abandoned North American timber wolf pups...

 with his book The Man Who Lives with Wolves (2009).

Family

The newspaper editor John Junor

John Junor

Sir John Donald Brown Junor was a Scottish journalist and editor-in-chief of the Sunday Express, having previously worked as a columnist there. He then moved to the Mail on Sunday....

 was her father and her brother Roderick is a former leader writer for The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

and speechwriter for Mrs Thatcher. Junor is married to the ex-restaurateur James Leith (brother of Prue

Prue Leith

Prudence Margaret Leith, CBE is a restaurateur, caterer, TV cook, broadcaster and cookery writer. She was born in South Africa, with her working life spent mostly in London, England....

) she has 4 children with her husband and their eldest son is the journalist Sam Leith

Sam Leith

Sam Leith is a British writer, journalist and columnist.After an education at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, Leith worked at revived satirical magazine Punch, before moving to the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph, where he served as literary editor until 2008...

. Her father was the subject of Home Truths: Life Around My Father (2002), an unflattering account. She presented the television consumer programme 4 What It's Worth from 1982 to 1984, and The Travel Show for nine years.