Career
Lane is also known for her animal rights activism and, until 2009, ran an animal sanctuary, Animaline, in Horsted Keynes, Sussex. In the 1960s she wrote short stories and radio scripts. Her first successes came in collaboration with Myra Taylor, whom she had met at a writers" workshop in Liverpool, before she embarked on a solo career.
Carla and Myra would often meet at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool city centre to write.
Lane returned her Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2002 in protest at the award of a Commander of the Order of the British Empire to Brian Cass, managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences. HLS has been at the centre of numerous animal rights protests for its use of animals in the development and testing of drugs.
Upon returning her award, she received a handwritten reply from Tony Blair who said that she deserved the honour and that it would be kept in case she changed her mind and wanted it back.