She was born in "Juniper Hill", a hamlet in north-east Oxfordshire. She was the eldest of six children of the stonemason Albert and the nursemaid Emma Timms. In her books her favourite brother, Edwin, is mentioned as important companion during her childhood. He was killed near Ypres in 1916. Flora was educated in the village "Cottisford" and worked in various post offices in southern England. The first of these was "Fringford", a village about four miles north-east of Bicester. Flora started work here in 1891, as assistant to the postmistress, Mrs. Kezia Whitton. Among other post offices where Flora worked was that at "Grayshott", in Hampshire, and she later moved to Bournemouth. In 1903 she married John William Thompson, with whom she had two sons and a daughter.