I’m happiest near the sea. I grew up beside it, in Sussex, and went to a grammar school in Hastings where I learned some Latin and English literature, but failed maths. Then I was lucky enough to win a place at Cambridge University and explore their marvellous libraries. I worked for a while for the Open University, then raised a family, but kept on reading and writing. First it was criticism – Hardy, the Victorian novelists, the First World War poets – then I started publishing my own poetry and a few works of fiction, and edited a little magazine, The Interpreter’s House. I now live quietly in Oxford with my husband John, who is a physicist. It’s a long way, but we try to get to the coast at least once a year and like nothing better than to walk along the tideline, and meditate, and watch the bird life.

‘I would rather take a free country walk than ride in a yacht or a coach, I would rather see the moon in the ruins than the gaslight of an assembly room’
W.H. Davies