Daniel Day-Lewis the second child of poet Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–1972) and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon (1925–2009). His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis (born 1953), is a television chef and food critic. His father, who was born in the Irish town of Ballintubbert, County Laois, was of Protestant Anglo-Irish descent, lived in England from the age of two, and was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Daniel's mother was Jewish; her ancestors were immigrants to England in the late 19th century, from Latvia and Poland. Day-Lewis' maternal grandfather, Sir Michael Balcon, became the head of Ealing Studios, helping develop the new
Cecil Day-Lewis figure in later novels.) From the mid-1930s Day-Lewis was able to earn his living by writing. Four of the Blake novels – "A Tangled Web, Penknife in My Heart, The Deadly Joker, The Private Wound" – do not feature Strangeways. "Minute for Murder" is set against the background of Day-Lewis's Second World War experiences in the Ministry of Information. "Head of a Traveller" features as a principal character a well-known poet, frustrated and suffering writer's block, whose best poetic days are long behind him. Readers and critics have speculated whether the author is describing himself, one of his colleagues, or