[5] After her parents returned to Belgium she studied English and French Literature at Trinity College, Dublin, winning the Vice-Chancellor's prize for poetry in 1956 and graduating in 1957.
[6] She became a lecturer in literature, linguistics, and creative writing, at various universities in England and Scotland, including Manchester (1957–58), Aberdeen (1963–65), Lancaster (1965–71), Birmingham (1973–76), and Sheffield City Polytechnic (1976–89).
[1] She also spent a period as reader to the partially sighted critic Percy Lubbock, and worked for a time at the Chester Beatty Library of Oriental Manuscripts in Dublin.
[2][4] She established two literary magazines, Scintilla and Sheaf, and published more than a dozen volumes of her own verse, including A Fan of Shadows (1967), Nodes (1969), Double Helix (1982), Timeslips (1997), Batu-Angas: Envisioning Nature with Alfred Russel Wallace (2008), Water to Breathe (2009), and Touching Distances: Diary Poems (2014).
[1][12] She wrote the scripts for two son-et-lumière shows, Echoes in Stone and Footsteps on the Sands of Time performed at Tintern Abbey and Caldicot Castle respectively, and contributed verse as part of Chepstow's regeneration scheme, engraved on paving and walls in the town centre in 2005.
On 26 March, Jackson was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder, and was told by Judge Neil Bidder that he would serve at least 19 years before being eligible for parole.