Gifts of War

Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939 and went to the Mount School, York; a Quaker boarding school. She won a major scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read English. She was awarded the CBE in 1980. She has written several novels, including A Summer Bird-Cage (1963); The Millstone (1965), filmed as A Touch of Love in 1969; The Realms of Gold (1975); The Ice Age (1977); The Radiant Way (1987); The Witch of Exmoor (1996), The Peppered Moth (2001), and several others. She has also published many articles and critical works. She is married to the biographer Michael Holroyd and lives in London.