Calderdale, Yorkshire, 7th June, 2015. Stewy stencil portrait mural of the American poet Sylvia Plath, who was married to Poet Laureate Ted Hughes at the Hebden Bridge Festival.

Calderdale, Yorkshire, 7th June, 2015. Stewy stencil portrait mural of the American poet Sylvia Plath, who was married to Poet Laureate Ted Hughes at the Hebden Bridge Festival.

MediaWorldImages / Alamy Stock Photo

Image ID: ERR517

The American poet Sylvia Plath, who was married to Poet Laureate Ted Hughes from nearby Mytholmroyd, is buried in the new St Thomas a' Beckett's churchyard. Plath's headstone is regularly vandalised by removing Hughes's surname from the memorial because some of her fans believe he was responsible for her death. The gravestone has recently been featured (2014) in the TV drama "Happy Valley" Within a period of six years, Ted Hughes faced the sudden deaths of four people dear to him. In February 1963 his estranged wife, Sylvia Plath, gassed herself in her kitchen following his affair with another woman, Assia Wevill. He was just 32 when he found himself in sole charge of their children, Frieda, who was three, and Nicholas, barely one year old. Six years later, in March 1969, Wevill killed herself and Shura, their four-year-old daughter. At that time, his mother Edith appeared to be getting on well after an operation on her knee, but Hughes was afraid that the news might affect her recovery. In the following weeks he shunned his parents, and did not visit, phone or write to them. When his father asked Olwyn, Hughes's sister, what the matter was, she told him but made him vow to keep it a secret. But he could not keep silent and told his wife. Edith suffered a thrombosis, lapsed into a coma and died three days later. Ted was certain that Wevill's suicide was the final blow. In a letter to his close friend Lucas Myers, Hughes reflected on his part in the deaths of his wife and lover, confessing that with Plath it was his "insane decisions", while in Wevill's case it was his "insane indecisions". When he granted us a rare interview in London in October 1996, Hughes said Plath's death "was complicated and inevitable, she had been on that track most of her life. But Wevill's was avoidable." Perhaps this was why he tried to erase her from his life.

Location: Hebden Bridge, Calderdale, Yorkshire, UK