Thornton was offered a scholarship to Halifax Secondary College but had to decline as her mother couldn't afford to pay for the uniform. She left school at fourteen to work in the local market and attended evening classes at the Halifax School of Art. A teenager in a garrison town during the Second World war, she wrote to hundreds of servicemen, eventually marrying a young subaltern, Ian Thornton. The Thorntons lived in Khartoum from 1953-1956. Thornton's writing career began when she offered her diary of a trip up the Nile in a small biological launch to the BBC. It was recorded the same afternoon as 20000 Miles Up the Nile.

Thornton wrote occasional stories for the South China Morning Post while living in Hong Kong from 1956-1968 (with a sabbatical year in Hawaii in 1963) but devoted most of her time to painting. In Australia she abandoned painting. Her writing was published in POL, Dolly and the Australian Women's Weekly. She wrote six stories with the ABC and scripts for Radio Australia. After her divorce she took a position at Stott's Correspondence College, gained an Honours Degree in English from La Trobe university and took a position at Burwood College. She edited the magazine LUNA.

Biography courtesy of the Author.