The family were evacuated to Northamptonshire at the start of World War II in September 1939.
They returned to London during the Blitz, travelled by sea around Africa to Australia for her father's work in 1941–42.
[1] Her Collected Poems, edited by George Szirtes, were published after her death (2003, Bloodaxe, ISBN 9781852243012).
[2] Downie described her wartime memories in her memoir There'll Always Be an England: a poet's childhood, 1929–1945, written in the last year of her life (2003, Bloodaxe, ISBN 9781852244767).
Downie's poems have been described as "elegant, full of gently spiked irony, and oblique, wistful glances at everyday events and familiar landscapes".