The writer Robert Nye was born 15 March 1939 in London. He attended Southend High School, a traditional grammar school, and began writing when he was thirteen. Between leaving school in 1955 and starting to write full-time in 1961, he held a variety of jobs including newspaper reporter, milkman, labourer in a market-garden, and ward orderly in a sanatorium. These jobs supported him in his poetry writing. In 1961, Nye moved to North Wales to absorb himself in full-time writing. Later on he settled in Edinburgh where he lived until 1977, then he moved to Ireland. In 1961, he published his first collection of poems, Juvenilia 1, and a second volume Juvenilia 2 was published in 1963. Around this time he became successful as a reviewer, becoming poetry editor for The Scotsman in 1967 and poetry critic for the Times in 1971. In addition to criticism and poetry, writing for children provided an outlet, Taliesin (1966) and March has horse's ears (1966) being his first books for children. These were based on a re-telling of Welsh tales. Other works for children, poetry, and short stories followed. Nye has written novels too, Doubtfire (1967), then Falstaff (1976), Merlin (1978) and Faust (1980). He died in 2016 aged 77.