Rosamund Dashwood was the daughter of celebrated English writer E. M. Delafield

E. M. Delafield

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, née de la Pasture , commonly known as E. M. Delafield, was a prolific English author. She is best-known for her largely autobiographical Diary of a Provincial Lady, which took the form of a journal of the life of an upper-middle class Englishwoman living mostly in a...

, and was one of the top female masters runners in Canadian history.

Dashwood was born in 1924 to Colonel Arthur Paul Dashwood

Dashwood Baronets

There have been two Baronetcies created for members of the Dashwood family, one in the Baronetage of England and one in the Baronetage of Great Britain...

, an engineer who built the massive docks in Hong Kong Harbour, and E.M. Delafield, the bestselling author who had written over forty novels and screenplays, including Diary of a Provincial Lady, which has never been out of print, and its three sequels.

During World War II, she joined the WAAF

WAAF

WAAF may refer to:*Women's Auxiliary Air Force, a British military service in World War II**Waaf, a member of the service*WAAF , a radio station licensed to Westborough, Massachusetts, United States...

 and worked with the newly invented and still top secret RADAR. After the war, she attended Somerville College and met Leslie Truelove, who she married. The couple had four sons: Paul, Simon, Patrick, and Michael.

She died on April 3, 2007, at the age of 83, in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.

Provincial Daughter

In 1961, Dashwood published Provincial Daughter, a light-hearted continuation of her mother's work. Stylistically similar to Diary of a Provincial Lady, Provincial Daughter is Dashwood's semi-autobiograhical account of domestic life in the 1950s. In the forward to the novel, Dashwood wrote:

It seemed natural to write it in the same idiom, but if the result seems to any reader too imitative, or even plaigaristic, I can only ask their forgiveness, as the original Provincial Lady would, I am sure, most warmly have given hers.

The novel was a success and was re-issued in 2002 by Virago

Virago Press

Virago is a British publishing company founded in 1973 by Carmen Callil to publish books by women writers. Both new works and reissued books by neglected authors have featured on the imprint's list....

.

Running

Dashwood took up long-distance running at middle age, partly as a way to deal with the death of her husband, who had died of a heart attack while running a marathon.

Despite her late start, she went on to have a remarkable career in which she set numerous age-class world records and Canadian records. Highlights of her career include setting the world record for the fastest 10K by a woman aged 65 or older at 46:18, and winning four gold medals at the World Seniors' Games. A talented cyclist and swimmer as well, she completed several triathlons. She also competed in relay triathlons, often with teammates who were many years younger.

She continued to run into her seventies.