Gavin Ewart was born in London in 1916. He studied at Christ's College, Cambridge and was literary editor of Granta from 1936-7. His Poems and Songs were published in 1939. Londoners appeared in 1964 and was followed by, among others, Pleasures of the Flesh (1966), The Deceptive Grin of the Gravel Porters (1968), The Gavin Ewart Show (1971) for which he won a Cholmondeley Award for Poetry, An Imaginary Love Affair (1974) and 85 Poems (1993). The Collected Poems was first published in 1980 with a new edition covering the years 1980-1990 being published in 1991.
