It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1972.

[3] It is studied in GCSE English as an example of the best of modern women's writing.

[4] The Albatross centers around Duncan, an intellectually disabled 18-year-old who has grown up with his domineering wheelchair-using mother[1] in Heype, a Suffolk seaside town based on Aldeburgh.

[5] Duncan finds it difficult to cope with anything outside his daily routine but is forced to interact with the wider world when his claustrophobic relationship with his mother reaches a breaking point.

The story was partly inspired by local composer Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes.