Barbara Amiel

Barbara Joan Estelle Amiel, Baroness Black of Crossharbour (born 4 December 1940) is a British journalist, writer, and socialite. She is the wife of former media baron Conrad Black.

Early life

Amiel was born into a Jewish family in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, the daughter of Vera Isserles (née Barnett) and Harold Joffre Amiel. Her parents divorced when she was eight, after her father left her mother for another woman. Her mother subsequently remarried and in November 1952, the couple emigrated with Barbara, her sister and half-brother, to Hamilton, Ontario. Her father committed suicide in 1956.

While in England, Amiel attended North London Collegiate School in Canons Park, Harrow, Greater London, an independent girls' school. Family difficulties—including some financial hardship—during the early years in Canada, precipitated her living independently for periods of time during her adolescence during which she held a variety of jobs to support herself. In 1959, she entered the University of Toronto, where she attended University College and took a degree in Philosophy and English. Amiel was an active communist, and was a delegate in 1962 to the Soviet-organised World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki, Finland.