Susan Alliston was born and educated in England. In 1960 she moved with her husband to Tunisia, returning to London in 1962. At first a secretary and later a reader for Faber & Faber and Penguin Books, she was friendly with a number of writers who met at the Lamb pub in Holborn. Among them was Ted Hughes. He encouraged her writing, and the journals cast light on aspects of his life and work. Susan Alliston died in 1969.

"...a weird blend of something savage and a bit surreal with a hard, fine conscientious realism." - Ted Hughes, 1970

"One of the most memorable books I have ever read. This memoir of a child caught up in the Holocaust is unputdownable. It tells what happened to this unprotected youngster as the fragrant peacetime days end, the Germans invade his homeland, and the nauseating stench of mass murder fills the air. The simple honesty with which Romek Marber tells his story is elegant and lucid. He is careful not to exaggerate or mislead us and this gives his account an awesome power. Do read it." - Len Deighton

Romek Marber, after his survival in the Holocaust, arrived in Britain in 1946. He has had a distinguished career as a designer, best known for his Penguin covers in the 1960s and 1970s. He was Head of the Graphic Design Department at Middlesex University from 1967 to 1990 where he is Professor Emeritus, and also Honorary Doctor of Letters, Brighton University. He lives in a North Essex village and is a dedicated cyclist.

Daniel Huws became a close friend of Ted Hughes at Cambridge. In this memoir he describes the young and still carefree Ted Hughes, his Cambridge friends, his enthusiasms, his coming out as a poet, the arrival on the scene of Sylvia Plath and of their years in London.

Daniel Huws was a contemporary of Ted Hughes at Cambridge. He was Keeper of Manuscripts at the National Library of Wales until 1992. Two collections of his poetry have been published, Noth (London: Secker & Warburg, 1972) and The Quarry (London: Faber & Faber, 1999). He has written extensively, in English and Welsh, on Welsh manuscripts and on Welsh traditional music. He was awarded the Derek Allen Prize for Celtic Studies by the British Academy in 2006.