Richard Brett-Knowles was born in Essex in 1924. Educated at St Catherine's College of Oxford University, with a life-long interest in radio engineering, Brett Knowles worked for the Telecommunications Research Establishment during World Word 2 which developed early radar technology. During the latter years of the war he joined the RAF, learnt to fly aeroplanes, and spent time in occupied Dutch territory learning about German radar technology.

In 1946 he joined the Royal Navy as an Instructor Officer, teaching at Dartmouth College. During this time he participated in the British North Greenland Expedition as an assistant scientist and radio officer from 1952 to 1954. The expedition was a pioneering British-led attempt to conduct research in several areas including polar geology, seismology, meteorology, physiology, gravimetry, radio communications and developing expertise in polar logistics.

Later, Brett-Knowles left the Navy and joined the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment where he was involved in several research and development projects. Following early retirement he became a consultant engineer and contributed to the development of products in the commercial aerospace industry. After retirement Brett-Knowles continued his life-long amateur radio hobby up until his death in 2015.

Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze is a poet, actress, dancer, choreographer, film writer and theatre director. She has released five poetry books, Riddym Ravings (Race Today), Spring Cleaning (Virago), and On the Edge of an Island, The Arrival of Brighteye and The Fifth Figure (all Bloodaxe), as well as several records and CDs, including Tracks with the Dennis Bovell Dub Band and Riding On De Riddym: selected spoken works (57 Productions). Third World Girl: Selected Poems (with DVD) is published by Bloodaxe in 2011. She has performed her work throughout the world, including tours of the Caribbean, North America, Europe, South East Asia and Africa, and now divides her time between Jamaica and Leicester. She received a NESTA Award in 2003.

Fran Brearton is lecturer in English at Queen’s University Belfast. Her study The Great War in Irish Poetrywas published by Oxford University Press in 2000, and she co-edited Last before America: Irish and American Writing (Blackstaff, 2001). She was the 2004 British Academy Chatterton Lecturer on English Poetry.

Kamau Brathwaite is the founder secretary of the Caribbean Artists Movement and editor of Savacou. He is Professor of Social and Cultural History at the University of the West Indies, and Professor of Comparative Literature at New York University.

Patrick Brandon was born in London in 1965. He studied painting at Norwich School of Art, and exhibits regularly, most recently at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize. A recipient of a New Writing Ventures bursary in 2006, he won the Essex Poetry Prize in 2005, and received commendations in the Wigtown Poetry Prize 2005, and in the National Poetry Competition 2007. A Republic of Linen (Bloodaxe Books, 2009) is his first book of poems. He lives in Bristol with his partner and two young children.