My mother, Rosemary Payne, who has died aged 85, was a physiotherapist who achieved worldwide recognition for her book, Payne’s Relaxation Techniques, a bestseller that was published in five languages and is still referred to in NHS relaxation advice booklets.
Most people would be thinking of retiring at 60 or 65, but that is when Rosemary decided to write a comprehensive book for professionals on relaxation techniques. No such book existed. She diligently made herself familiar with an enormous body of scientific literature, and, at the age of 66, she published the first edition. The initial print run exhausted, the book was reprinted and her publishers, Churchill Livingstone and, later, Elsevier, kept asking for new editions. Possessed of enormous reserves of determination and self-discipline, she wrote the fourth edition at the age of 81.
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