U. A. Fanthorpe

Ursula Askham Fanthorpe CBE FRSL (22 July 1929 – 28 April 2009) was an English poet, who published as U. A. Fanthorpe. Her poetry comments mainly on social issues.

Life and work Early years and education Born in south-east London, Fanthorpe was the daughter of a judge, or as she put it "middle-class but honest parents". She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley, in Surrey, and at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she "came to life",

Fanthorpe's first volume of poetry, Side Effects (1978), has been said to "unsentimentally recover the invisible lives and voices of psychiatric patients."

Her 1984 volume Voices Off explores student life, critical vocabulary, and the finding that "naming is power". Her nine collections of poems were published by Peterloo Poets. Her Collected Poems was published in 2005.

Rosie Bailey Many of Fanthorpe's poems bring in two voices. In her readings the other voice is that of the Bristol academic and teacher R. V. "Rosie" Bailey, Fanthorpe's life partner of 44 years. Both became Quakers in the 1980s. Both were committed Christians. They affirmed their long-term relationship with a Civil Partnership in 2006. The couple co-wrote a collection of poems, From Me To You: love poems, illustrated by Nick Wadley and published in 2007 by Enitharmon.

Death Fanthorpe died of cancer aged 79 on 28 April 2009, in a hospice near her home in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire.

Awards Fanthorpe was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2001 New Year Honours for services to literature. In 2003 she received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Among many other awards and honours she was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Bath.