Ida was born near London in 1908. From the age of ten, she knew she wanted to write. She began writing fiction when she was in her very early teens,soon her stories were in major magazines and before she was twenty had several short novels in print.

Amongst the many interesting figures she met through her work was Major HughPollock, who was then a book editor with the publisher George Newnes, theymet when she visited the publisher's office. At that time he was married to the children's writer Enid Blyton. A later chance encounter with him,in the dark days at the beginning of World War II, was to change her life.Hugh was back in the army and Commandant of a school for Home Guardofficers. Feeling Ida should be out of London, he offered her a post ascivilian secretary. She accepted, and as the months went by theirrelationship intensified. In May 1942, he was sent overseas and Ida cameclose to being killed by a bombing raid. The following year, however, andsoon after his divorce, they were married in London's battered Guildhallregister office. Soon they had a daughter, Rosemary Pollock, also a romance writer.

After the war, her husband experienced problems, mostly financial, and adetermined Ida plunged back into her literary work, starting to writeromances for Mills & Boon. With the production of ten or twelve titles inevery year, it was not long before she was writing contemporany romances forfive publishers under six pseudonyms and becoming hugely popular rightacross the world. In the later 60's, Ida became little disenchanted withcontemporary romantic fiction and decided to write some historical romances.The success of five of her Regency novels prompted Mills & Boon to set uptheir Masquerade series and she became one of their four founding writers.Ida once explained her multiple identities in terms of being in print with several major international publishers at the same time. At that time, thepseudonyms were registered by the publishers and not by the writers. Ida has more than a hundred widely published novels as her married name and underher numerous pseudonyms.

During her marriage with Hugh, Ida travelled widely and lived in many partsof England. After her husband's death in Malta in 1971, she also livedabroad for several years, travelling betweeen Switzerland (which she loves),Italy, France, Ireland and Malta, but these days home is an idyllic villagein south-east Cornwall.

Ida is still actively pursuing her literary career aged 100 years from herhome. When not writing, she makes model houses, usually scale miniatures ofGeorgian or Tudor buildings, but she specially enjoys painting in oils.Really, she is an accomplished painter and has been selected for inclusionin a national exhibition. Ida Pollock's autobiography is to be published in2008.