Ted Hughes was born on 17 August 1930 in Mytholmroyd, a small mill town in West Yorkshire. The family moved to Mexborough, a coal-mining town in South Yorkshire, when Hughes was seven. Between leaving Cambridge and becoming a teacher, he worked at various jobs, finally as a script-reader for Rank at their Pinewood Studios. In 1956, Hughes married the American poet Sylvia Plath, who died in 1963, and they had two children. He remarried in 1970. He was awarded the OBE in 1977, created Poet Laureate in December 1984 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1998. Ted Hughes's first book,The Hawk in the Rain, was published by Faber in 1957. He published poetry, fiction and prose for both adults and children, as well as acclaimed translations. He died in October 1998.