Mary Wilson, Baroness Wilson of Rievaulx

Mary Wilson, Baroness Wilson of Rievaulx (born 1918) is an English poet, best known as the wife of former British prime minister, Harold Wilson.

She was born Gladys Mary Baldwin in Norfolk, the daughter of a Congregationalist minister, and married Wilson on New Year's Day, 1940. It was generally assumed that she owed her subsequent success as a poet to her position as the Prime Minister's wife. Nevertheless, her name was at one time mentioned as a possibility for the next Poet Laureate.

According to the DNB entry for Harold Wilson, written by Roy Jenkins [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/58000?docPos=83] , Mary Wilson was not too happy with life as a "political" wife. It was this detachment which gave the "Private Eye" spoof "Mrs Wilson's Diary", supposedly the diary of Mary Wilson written in the style of the BBC daily radio serial "Mrs Dale's Diary", a spurious look of authenticity, which greatly contributed to its success. The "Diary" was one of the great successes of the magazine in its early days and helped to raise its profile, and also that of Mary Wilson, probably placing her further forward in the public eye than she would have wished.

Bibliography

"Selected Poems" (1970) ISBN 0-09-105010-3
"New Poems" (1979) ISBN 0-09-139460-0

References

Examples of her poetry

If I can write, before I die
One line of purest poetry;
Or crystallize, for all to share
A thought unique, a moment rare
Within one sentence, clear and plain-
Then I shall not have lived in vain.
- Untitled introduction from "Selected Poems" (1970)

* [http://www.trashfiction.co.uk/mary_wilson.html Mary Wilson Selected Poems]

External links

* Roy Hattersley, The truth about Harold Wilson - after 30 years of scandalous rumours, Daily Mail, 24 June 2007 [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=463794&in_page_id=1879]

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