Editing Mary Wesley (section)

===Birth and family===
'''Mary Aline Mynors Farmar''' was born in [[Englefield Green]], Surrey, the third child of Colonel Harold Mynors Farmar, [[Order_of_St_Michael_and_St_George#Description|CMG]], [[Distinguished Service Order|DSO]], of Orchards, [[Bicknoller]], Somerset, and his wife Violet Hyacinth, née Dalby, granddaughter of Sir [[William Bartlett Dalby]].<ref name=odnb/><ref>Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 3, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 3868</ref> As a child, she had a succession of 16 foreign governesses.<ref name=odnb/> When she asked her mother why they kept on leaving, her mother reportedly told her: "Because none of them like you, darling."

Wesley had a lifelong complicated relationship with her family and especially with her mother, who had a sharp tongue. Following the death of her father in 1961, her mother said: "I'm not going to let that lingering death happen to me. When the time comes I'm going to crawl to the [[Solent]] and swim out." Wesley replied with feeling: "I'll help you".<ref name="Marnham 2006, p. 246">Marnham 2006, p. 246.</ref>

Her family did not approve of her books. Her brother called what she wrote "filth" and her sister, with whom she was no longer on speaking terms, strongly objected to ''[[The Camomile Lawn]]'', claiming that some of the characters were based on their parents. Wesley identified the appalling grandparents in ''[[Harnessing Peacocks]]'', who bully the pregnant Hebe, as the nearest she came to a portrait of her own parents in old age.<ref>Marnham 2006, p. 252.</ref>