In the years between 1965 and 1971, I had had a rather tumultous and unsettled time.

I had bravely begun a course in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham ( it was the era of Gilbert Ryle’s ‘Concept of Mind’);  had discovered that I wasn’t suited to Logic and truth tables; had dropped out, gone to work at the Victoria and Albert museum, as a museum assistant; had then left and taken a course in Fine Art at the University of East Anglia, and graduated, this time, with a 2:1.

Throughout these times, I had continued to write poetry, and  had been published in a variety of little magazines:  Mermaid, Scrip, Breakthru, Preface,Sun, Iconolate and Plain Poetry.  I had joined the Poetry Society and met and become friends with the poets Frances and Michael Horowitz and George Macbeth at poetry readings that I attended.

Then, on Thursday, 3 July, 1969, Derwent May, the literary editor of  The Listener, kindly accepted a poem of mine: ‘ Concerning the Spiritual in Motherhood’.

I was elated.