Editing Claire Rayner (section)

===Journalist and writer===
Rayner wrote her first letter to ''[[Nursing Times]]'' in 1958, on nurses' pay and conditions. She then began regularly writing to ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' on themes of patient care or nurses' pay. She began writing novels soon after her marriage, and by 1968 had published more than 25 books.<ref name=TelgObit/>

The birth of her first child in 1960<ref name="Hayman">{{cite news|author= Hayman, Suzie|url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/oct/12/claire-rayner-obituary|title= Obituary: Claire Rayner|work= [[The Guardian]]|date= 12 October 2010|access-date = 25 February 2025}}</ref> meant that she found full-time nursing difficult, and so focused on a full-time writing career. Initially writing articles for magazines and publications, in 1968 she published one of the earliest sex manuals, ''People in Love'', which brought her to national attention. Despite the "explicit" content, the work was commended for its "down-to-earth" and "sensible" approach.<ref name=TelgObit/>

By the 1970s, Rayner had established herself in writing for ''[[Woman's Own]]'' as one of four new and direct "agony aunts", alongside [[Marjorie Proops]], [[Peggy Makins]] (aka Evelyn Home) at ''[[Woman (UK magazine)|Woman]]'' and J. Firbank of ''[[Penthouse Forum|Forum]]''.<ref name=TelgObit/> Her advice in the teenaged girls' magazine ''[[Petticoat (magazine)|Petticoat]]'' caused controversy. In 1972, she was accused of "encouraging masturbation and promiscuity in prepubescent girls".<ref name=TelgObit/> Her direct and frank approach led the [[BBC]] to ask her to be the first person on British pre-watershed television to demonstrate how to put on a condom, and she was one of the first people used by advertisers to promote sanitary towels.<ref name=TelgObit/>

The year after beginning to appear on ''[[Pebble Mill at One]]'', Rayner started an agony column in ''[[The Sun (United Kingdom)|The Sun]]'' in 1973,<ref name="Hayman"/> but left to join the ''[[Sunday Mirror]]'' in 1980, when she also made her second television series of ''Claire Rayner's Casebook.'' She left the ''Sunday Mirror'' shortly after the appointment of [[Eve Pollard]] as editor, and joined the ''[[Today (UK newspaper)|Today]]'' newspaper for three years. Rayner was named medical journalist of the year in 1987.<ref name=TelgObit/>

Rayner was probably best known as an agony aunt on [[TV-am]] in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She made it her personal aim to reply to every letter she received. This was an unfunded project by the station.

She was the subject of ''[[This Is Your Life (UK TV series)|This Is Your Life]]'' in 1989, when she was surprised by [[Michael Aspel]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0721544/|title=This Is Your Life {{!}} Claire Rayner|website=[[IMDb]]|access-date=2 December 2024}}</ref>