Freda Downie (20 October 1929 – 4 May 1993) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

Early life

Downie was born in London on 20 October 1929, growing up in the outskirts of

Shooters Hill Shooter's Hill is a district of South East London, England, straddling the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Bexley. It lies north of Eltham and south of Woolwich. With a height of , it is the highest point in the Borough of ...

. The family were evacuated to

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

at the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in September 1939. They returned to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

during the

Blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, several ships of the Prussian, Imperia ...

, travelled by sea around Africa to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

for her father's work in 1941–42. In 1944, the family returned across the Pacific to London at the time of V-1 and

V-2 The V2 (), with the technical name '' Aggregat-4'' (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a " ven ...

rockets. As an adult, Downie worked for

music publisher A music publisher is a type of publisher that specializes in distributing music. Music publishers originally published sheet music. When copyright became legally protected, music publishers began to play a role in the management of the intellectu ...

s and art agents.

Writing

Downie only started publishing her poetry in the 1970s, and much of her work was published by small presses including Mandeville and Priapus. Her two main published collections were ''A Stranger Here'' (1977) and ''Plainsong'' (1981). Her ''Collected Poems'', edited by

George Szirtes George Szirtes (; born 29 November 1948) is a British poet and translator from the Hungarian language into English. Originally from Hungary, he has lived in the United Kingdom for most of his life after coming to the country as a refugee at the ...

, were published in 2023, after her death. Downie described her wartime memories in her

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autob ...

''There'll Always Be an England: a poet's childhood, 1929–1945'' , written in the last year of her life and published in 2003. Downie's poems have been described as "elegant, full of gently spiked

irony Irony, in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what, on the surface, appears to be the case with what is actually or expected to be the case. Originally a rhetorical device and literary technique, in modernity, modern times irony has a ...

, and oblique, wistful glances at everyday events and familiar

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

Geoffrey Grigson Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine ''New Verse'', and went on to p ...

described ''A Stranger Here'' as "a better book of new poetry than any I have seen for years". Her obituarist in ''The Independent'' said that: She won the

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the ...

Festival poetry competition in 1970, and an Arts Council Poetry Prize in 1977 for her ''A Stranger Here''.

Personal life

Downie married David Turner in 1957, and died at

Berkhamsted Berkhamsted ( ) is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, in the River Bulbourne, Bulbourne valley, north-west of London. The town is a Civil parishes in England, civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum which ...

on 4 May 1993.

Selected publications

*''A Stranger Here'' (1977, Secker, ) *''Plainsong'' (1981, Secker, ) *''Collected Poems'', edited by

(2003, Bloodaxe, ) *''There'll Always Be an England: a poet's childhood, 1929–1945'', (2003, Bloodaxe, )

Early life

Writing

Personal life

Selected publications

References

Further reading