She met the poet Rupert Brooke at a supper party in May 1907, prior to a meeting of the Cambridge Fabians which her father had been invited to address.

He was captivated by the shy intelligent schoolgirl and began to bombard her with letters, initiating a correspondence that was to last until his death in 1915.

The group included Dorothy Layton, Rupert Brooke, Helen Verrall, her sister Margery Olivier, Bill Hubback, Eva Spielman, Jerry Pinsent and Dolly Rose.

Up to the time of her death in April 1969, she steadfastly refused publication of the letters which Brooke had written to her.

[8] These formed the basis of the play, Verge of Strife, by Nick Baldock, in which Kirsten Callaghan portrayed Olivier.