Ann Barr was a British journalist and writer involved in coining the terms Sloane Rangers and Foodies, in the early 1980s.
Background
Isabel Ann Barr was born in London to Andrew and Margaret Barr, Scottish and Canadian respectively. At the outbreak of World World War II she and her three siblings were taken to Montreal by her mother where she attended a private school called The Study.
Education
She then returned to England in 1945 and attended Street Margaret’s boarding school, Ludlow, Shropshire (now Moor Park School).
Career
Her earliest years were spent in North Audley Street, Mayfair. In 1950, the family moved to Belgravia. Her paternal grandfather was the inventor of Barr"s Irn-Bru, a type of fizzy soda drink, popular in Scotland.
She worked as a secretary at The Times and as a sub editor at House and Garden magazine and the Weekend Telegraph magazine.
She was features editor of Queen, then Harpers & Queen for which she was the deputy editor from 1971 to 1985. With Peter York, she co-wrote The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook which sold over a million copies.
She followed up with The Official Foodie Handbook in 1984, co-written with Paul Levy. Barr died, never having married, from complications of Alzheimer"s disease in 2015, aged 85.
She had been living in a nursing home in Pimlico, London.