Her mother, Bridget Cawston, brought up her three daughters alone while working several jobs. The family eventually found a home at Barton Cottage in West Runton, living with their grandmother, Mrs Cawston’s mother, on the north Norfolk coast.
Growing up, the three sisters - Jill, Jenny, and Jane - were very close. Jill was especially very proud of her aunt, the author of the children’s books The Islanders, Gay Knowles. The sisters were depicted in the illustrations for the books.
After school, she trained in London at Le Cordon Blue, shortly after renowned chef and baker Mary Berry, and honed her skills in restaurants around France – something which had been “quite daring” for the era, her son explained.