List of Illustrations

1.   Sandor Gross, Phyllis Pearsall’s father.

2.   Bella Gross, Phyllis’s mother.

3.   Phyllis, aged six months, with her brother Tony, aged two.

4.   The young Phyllis with her pet elephant Elijah.

5.   Phyllis, aged six, and her brother Tony, setting free some birds in the grounds of The Firs, their home in Surrey.

6.   The war years: Phyllis’s sketches of Wrens at work from her book Women at War.

7.   A portrait of Phyllis taken in 1940 by the late Sir Henry Turner.

8.   After her plane crash: Phyllis, aged forty-five, shows the strain of her ill-health.

9.   In 1936, Phyllis began her A-Z odyssey, overcoming endless obstacles in her bid to give London an up-to-date street atlas. Her first order was from WH Smith’s and delivered in a borrowed wheelbarrow.

10.   A-Z London is now the market leader and one of many A-Z Street Atlases.

11.   Phyllis was determined to conquer the rest of Britain with her maps.

12.   Phyllis with her best friend Esme Wren.

13.   Phyllis with Esme at the Berkeley Hotel flanking the portrait of Bella by Alfred.

14.   Before Bedlam: The portrait of Bella painted by Alfred, two years before her death.

15.   Phyllis spent her life recording London and its changes. This drawing from the late thirties shows Waterloo Bridge being rebuilt.

16.   Trafalgar Square from Drummonds Bank.

17.   Claridges: This is Phyllis’s last painting, undertaken as a commission for Claridges in 1996.

18.   Government House, Hong Kong: This was painted by Phyllis during one of her visits to Chris and Lavender Patten.

19.   Phyllis painting in France.

20.   Phyllis outside the company she founded in Borough Green, Kent.