[3] Born near Blackburn, Lancashire on 29 May 1918, the second of eight children of a cotton-mill owner, James Astley Birtwistle and his wife Muriel Mary (née Marwood).
She was educated at the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, Mayfield, Sussex and at the Reimann School of Art[4] in London.
She was admired by leading writers of her day such as T. S. Eliot, Robert Graves, and Dame Muriel Spark (who credited Birtwistle with her conversion to Catholicism).
Jennifer Lash lived with her there for a period of time, and was introduced to her future husband, Mark Fiennes, by Birtwistle.
[citation needed] Although a collection of her work had been completed before her death, When Leaf and Note are Gone was finally published posthumously by Buff Press in 2008, edited by poets Anne Stewart and Angela Kirby (Birtwistle’s youngest sister).