Roy Fuller CBE was professor of poetry at the University of Oxford but started his career as a solicitor before working for a building society. From 1972-79 he was a member of the Board of Governors of the BBC.

Fuller was conscripted into the navy during the Second World War as an ordinary seaman and rose to the rank of petty officer. His wartime experiences emerged in verse, making him one of the conflict’s more distinguished poets. A wartime friend was Alan Ross, publisher of the London Magazine, who became an important promoter of his work. Fuller also wrote seven novels and four crime mysteries, as well as several volumes of memoirs. A self-deprecating man, he wrote a poem entitled ‘Obituary of R. Fuller’ in which he described himself as ‘Part managerial, part poetic / Hard to decide the more pathetic…’