Jane Bowen was born in Scotland after the Second World War. She attended Schools in Dumbarton, Glasgow, and Bolton, before reading History at the University of London, and training as a teacher at Cambridge. Jane taught in Bedford, Hertfordshire and Isle of Man before she became headmistress of a school in North Yorkshire.From there she returned to Scotland to join the Schools Inspectorate where she was involved in a range of initiatives among the most interesting of which was contributing to an inspection of Child Protection arrangements.On retiring, she returned to her first love of history, wrote a history of the Belford Workhouse, and contributed to publications of her local history society. She took a course in palaeography and began researching stories of interest such as that of the Pegasus. This took on another dimension when she was invited to contribute to the BBC 'Who do you think you are?' programme with Sarah Millican.