Born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 1 February 1900 (and, purportedly, relocated three weeks later), Young was the daughter of music hall performers Nellie Blanche C. (née Parker) and Charles Alfred Romaine Wragg, known professionally as Charles Pastor. Speaking with reporter Beverly Howells almost eight decades later, Young acknowledged that, given her parents' continued performing, it was "really my grandmother who provided any motherly care I received as a child." She was educated at convents in Bournemouth and in France.