Fleur Adcock was born in New Zealand in 1934, and spent the war years in England, returning with her family to New Zealand in 1947. She emigrated to Britain in 1963. She received an OBE in 1996, and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000 (2000). In 2019 Fleur Adcock was presented with the New Zealand Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry by the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. She lived in East Finchley, north London, from 1963 to her death in October 2024.