His poetry collection, Bronze Frieze: Poems Mostly Rhodesian was published by Oxford University Press in 1950.
[2] Brettell was born in 1908 in Lye, West Midlands and attended the grammar school King Edward VI College, Stourbridge.
[2] In an academic review (1978) of Rhodesian poetry, Graham Robin wrote that “Brettell puts into words the halting stupefaction of the exile in such a new and strange land.
[1][2] In 1979, the final year of the Rhodesian Bush War, the couple's home in Inyanga was attacked and destroyed by insurgents.
In 1984, the couple's car was rammed by a bus in Kadoma, injuring Eva, who died a few days later.