Roy Fuller was born in Failsworth, Lancashire in 1912 and grew up in Blackpool. On leaving school, he trained as a solicitor. He married in 1936, and his son John was born the following year. He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War and then spent his working life with the Woolwich Building Society, of which he became a director. His prolific literary output included eighteen collections of poetry, nine novels and four volumes of memoirs, as well as books for children. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1968 to 1973, and served on the BBC Board of Governors for seven years from 1972 and as Chairman of the Arts Council Literature Panel, 1976–7. He was awarded the CBE and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1970. Roy Fuller died in 1991.