Betty Thatcher

In her late years she was not in the best of health, suffering from emphysema. Thatcher died of cancer on 15 August 2011, in Hayle.

In 2005, Thatcher wrote lyrics for the album South of Winter by Terence Sullivan's group Renaissant, which featured John Tout on keyboards, Sullivan's wife Christine on most of the vocals and Sullivan singing lead on two songs.

In 1994, Thatcher wrote the lyrics for the album The Other Woman by Michael Dunford's Renaissance, which featured singer Stephanie Adlington. These were written "during the painful period when a relationship was coming to an end... during which I was unable to speak, so I tried to put some of my feelings to song".

In 1973, McCarty formed the group Shoot, whose only album, On the Frontier, featured the McCarty/Thatcher-composed title track that Renaissance recorded for Ashes Are Burning (1973).

After many personnel changes, the Renaissance lineup finally stabilised from 1972 to 1980, featuring Annie Haslam (vocals), John Tout (keyboards), Michael Dunford (guitar), Jon Camp (bass guitar/vocals) and Terence Sullivan (drums). Dunford sent tapes of his compositions to her when it was inconvenient to play through his ideas in person and said that "she writes amazingly quickly... three days later I get these stunning lyrics back in the post!"

During this period, Thatcher wrote most of the band's lyrics for the studio albums Prologue (1972), Ashes Are Burning (1973), Turn of the Cards (1974), Scheherazade and Other Stories (1975), Novella (1977), A Song for All Seasons (1978) and Azure d'Or (1979). She wrote the lyrics to their 1978 UK top 10 hit single "Northern Lights". After further personnel changes, she wrote lyrics for the 1981 album Camera Camera; these lyrics were her final contributions to the band. She wrote the words to "Bonjour Swansong" as "a private goodbye to the group."

In 1972, she married at the Kensington and Chelsea Register Office and became Betty Brown. She divorced in 1976, and changed her name back to Newsinger in the early 1980s, when her name gained political significance. She was a private person as was her ex-husband. She lived most of her life in St Ives and then in Hayle.

Thatcher's friend Liz Kellett introduced her to Kellett's school friend Jane Relf, the younger sister of ex-Yardbirds singer Keith Relf. When Keith and Jane formed Renaissance, they asked her to be the lyricist, Relf having read Thatcher's letters to Jane. When the threesome moved to St Ives, Cornwall, she sent her lyrics from there to Jim McCarty who would write songs around them, including "Love Is All" and "Past Orbits of Dust" from the album Illusion, produced by Paul Samwell-Smith and released in Germany in 1971, but not released in the UK until 1976.

During the 1970s, Thatcher wrote English lyrics for German and Spanish hits. In 1985, she wrote the lyrics to Annie Haslam's Still Life album, which was recorded with Louis Clark and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Thatcher and Clark also recorded an album entitled The Life of Dorian Gray, which was never released. She contributed lyrics to the Don Airey's 1989 album K2. In 1998, Thatcher wrote the words for a Japanese commercial for Nikka Whiskey which won five awards.

Betty Thatcher (16 February 1944 – 15 August 2011) was an English lyricist who wrote many of the lyrics for the progressive rock band Renaissance.