Patricia Jennings was educated at Sidcot School and Oldfield School. In 1942 she married Frederick Philip Cheswright [Philip]. The pair had two children. For much of World War II Philip was at sea on Naval service, and Patricia spent time with family and was involved with agricultural work. After Philip's death in 1947, Patricia established a smallholding and market garden near Chichester. She married Reginald Joseph Jennings [Rod] in 1950. The pair continued to run farms together, eventually relocating to Cambo. Patricia and Rod divorced in 1960. Patricia was an enthusiast for Northumbrian Pipe music and continued to live at Wallington Hall until shortly before her death.

Jane Griffiths was born in Exeter in 1970, and brought up in Holland. After reading English at Oxford, where her poem 'The House' won the Newdigate Prize, she worked as a book-binder in London and Norfolk. Returning to Oxford, she completed her doctorate on the Tudor poet John Skelton and worked on the Oxford English Dictionary for two years. After teaching English Literature at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and then at the universities of Edinburgh and Bristol, she now teaches at Wadham College, Oxford. She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1996. Her book Another Country: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), included a new collection, Eclogue Over Merlin Street (2008), together with large selections from her previous two Bloodaxe collections, A Grip on Thin Air (2000) and Icarus on Earth (2005), and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. Her latest collection is Terrestrial Variations (Bloodaxe Books, 2012).