Sylvia: From their pens to your ears, genius in every story

Bessie Cope was born in Liverpool in Lancashire in 1869 (some accounts give an alternative birth year of 1880).

Her father died when she was a teenager and her mother remarried a journalist who later became the proprietor of the Liverpool Courier.

In 1892 Bessie married Gerald Kyffin-Taylor, who later sat in Parliament before resigning his seat at the outbreak of World War I to serve in the Army, where he rose to the rank of Brigadier-General.

After their marriage they settled in Heswall, a to...