A globetrotting writer and World War II survivor with more than 40 books to her name has passed away, aged 95.

Tessa Warburg, née Lorant, was a familiar face to many in central Southampton, where she had lived for the past 25 years. 

Born in East Berlin in February 1929, Tessa was brought up in Vienna. After Austria was invaded in 1938, she moved around Europe with her Hungarian father before moving to England with her American mother and step father to be educated at various convent schools and then Oxted Grammar School in Surrey.

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After winning a scholarship and studying mathematics at Southampton University, she became an American citizen in 1946 and worked as a computer programmer in New York, as well as obtaining a Masters in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin. 

She met Jeremy in Strobl, Austria in 1953, they married in Madison, Wisconsin, and moved to the UK in 1955.

The couple had three children, Madeleine, who passed away in 2016, and identical twins Colin and Richard.

Tessa taught mathematics at a further education college in Watford, and spent a year in Indianapolis where her husband was a visiting professor, before moving to Somerset in 1964.

In 1972, Tessa and Jeremy set up a book publishing company, the Thorn Press, publishing many of her best-selling knitting books and aids.

She went on to write dozens of other books, including A Voice At Twilight on Jeremy's death in 1986, for which she won the Oddfellows Social Concern award.

Tessa moved to Southampton to live with her son Colin in 1999 and visited Richard in the US often, spending her last birthday at his home in St Thomas. 

At the time of her death, Tessa was still working on several books, including her autobiography and a sequel to Cloner, which is currently being made into a film. 

Tessa leaves her sons, their six children and a great granddaughter, missing her second great granddaughter by just two days. 

A requiem mass for Tessa will take place at St Joseph's in Bugle Street on Tuesday October 15 at 7pm.