. . . was born near Manchester, raised in London, married in Birmingham, ran a smallholding and brought up three children on the North York Moors and now lives in South Wales. She was a journalist for many years, writing, among other things, the longest-running by-line column in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
She has won a few prizes and published several books, including a memoir, Three-three, two-two, five six, described by Raymond Tallis as “a masterpiece” and a quirky guidebook to the City of Newport. Of her four volumes of poetry from Peterloo, the most recent, Between Dryden and Duffy, appeared in 2005.
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Sad to say, Ann Drysdale died on 16th August 2024. Her other Peterloo collections were The Turn of the Cucumber 1995, Gay Science,1999 and Backwork 2002. Her later collections included Quaintness And Other Offences Cinnamon Press 2009, Miss Jekyll’s Gardening Boots Shoestring Press 2015, Vanitas Shoestring Press 2019, and Feeling Unusual Shoestring Press 2022.
Her guidebook to Newport, Real Newport Seren 2006, contains twenty-five related poems. Her Yorkshire Evening Post columns were turned into four books (Faint Heart Never Kissed a Pig 1982, Sows’ Ears and Silk Purses 1984 Pearls Before Swine 1985, all published by Routledge and Kegan Paul, and A Pig in a Passage 1997 published by Robert Hale). .Discussing Wittgenstein, a sequel to Three-three, two-two, five six Cinnamon Press 2007, was also published by Cinnamon Press in 2009.