Personal life of shirley toulson

British poet, writer, journalist and politician

Kathleen Shirley Toulson (néeDixon; 20 May 1924 – 23 September 2018) was an English writer, poet, journalist and local politician.^[2]

She attended Prior's Field School and worked with the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II and married Norman Toulson, an army lieutenant, in 1944: they divorced in 1951.

She then studied English at Birkbeck, University of London, and worked at Foyles bookshop before becoming a journalist. In 1960 she married poet Alan Brownjohn;^[3] they divorced in 1969.^[2]

As a poet she was a member of The Group, an informal group of poets who met in London from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s.^[1][4] Her work was included in the group's 1963 anthology A Group Anthology.^[1][2]

In 1962 she and her husband Alan Brownjohn were elected as Labour councillors in the Wandsworth London Borough Council.