Editing Beryl Bainbridge (section)

===Early life===
Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was born in Liverpool's [[Allerton, Liverpool|Allerton]] suburb on 21 November 1932,<ref name="ODNB">{{Cite ODNB|id=102494|title=Bainbridge, Dame Beryl Margaret (1932–2010)}}</ref> the daughter of Winifred Baines and Richard Bainbridge. She grew up in the nearby town of [[Formby]]. Although she often gave her date of birth as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/information.pl?cite=JqQNVi1e7Tz3zwyncUDeRQ&scan=1|title=Index entry|access-date=5 July 2020|work=FreeBMD|publisher=ONS}}</ref> When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947, he mentioned her 15th birthday.<ref name=hastings>{{citation|title=Beryl Bainbridge, a German prisoner of war and a secret love affair|last=Hastings|first=Chris|date=12 October 2005|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|location=London|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/11/nberyl11.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/12/11/ixhome.html|access-date=17 November 2008}} {{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

Bainbridge enjoyed writing, and by the age of 10 she was keeping a diary.<ref name=hastings/> She had elocution lessons and, when she was 11, appeared on the [https://web.archive.org/web/20110713091656/http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/archives-cc/app/details.php?id=7372&return=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bu.edu%2Fphpbin%2Farchives-cc%2Fapp%2Fbrowse.php%3Fletter%3DB ''Northern Children's Hour'' radio show], alongside [[Billie Whitelaw]] and [[Judith Chalmers]]. She was expelled from [[Merchant Taylors' Girls' School]] in [[Great Crosby]] when she was caught with a "dirty rhyme" (as she later described it) written by someone else in her gymslip pocket.<ref name=preston>{{citation|title=Every story tells a picture|last=Preston|first=John|date=24 October 2005|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/10/24/boberyl.xml&page=1|access-date=17 January 2008|newspaper=Daily Telegraph}} {{dead link|date=July 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> She then went on to study at Cone-Ripman School in [[Tring]] (now the [[Tring Park School for the Performing Arts]]),<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dame-beryl-bainbridge-novelist-whose-work-began-rooted-in-autobiography-and-which-later-developed-to-encompass-historical-subjects-2017281.html|title=Dame Beryl Bainbridge: Novelist whose work began rooted in autobiography and which later developed to encompass historical subjects|last=Levy|first=Paul|date=3 July 2010|work=The Independent}}</ref> where she found she was good at history, English, and art. The summer she left school, she fell in love with former German prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six&nbsp;years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for him to return to Britain so that they could marry, but permission was denied and the relationship ended in 1953.<ref name="hastings"/>