Assia Gutmann Wevill and Shura Hughes Wevill, England, December 1968. Photo copyright Martin Baker

Today is the 46th anniversary of the deaths of Assia Gutmann Wevill, and Shura Hughes Wevill. They both died on 23rd March, 1969. Assia was 41 years old, and her daughter Shura was four. After a fraught phone conversation with her lover, Ted Hughes, Assia took pills, turned on the gas, and lay down to die with her daughter, whom she believed would be left without anyone to love her.

Let us remember them.

The chapter called Snow,in my novel, Capriccio, is a fictionalised account of what happened that tragic day.