Born and Bred: Larkin Reflections – Four Hull Poets respond to Philip Larkin (John Robinson, Joe Hakim, Vicky Foster, Dean Wilson) Middleton Hall, 25 October 2017

This event in the Hull City of Culture programme, introduced by Martin Goodman, Professor of Creative Writing in the University, featured four poets ‘born and bred’ in Hull. They spanned the generations: John Robinson had been ‘bolshy, and wanted to kick out the old guard’, including Larkin. Joe Hakon’s experience was quite different. He had read ‘Money’ at the age of 12, and felt that Larkin, like his beloved Charles Bukovski, ‘was putting two fingers up at the establishment’. On the other hand: ‘Let’s face it: he’s a “Dead White Male”‘. Dean Wilson, had come to University at the age of 17, already a poet, to work in the postroom and later the library, where Larkin reviewed the porters in a military style line up, a procedure Dean had rather liked. Vicky Foster had a different story again. She had much enjoyed poetry at school: ‘all the old poets: Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Wordsworth’, and encountered Larkin’s poems at ‘A’ level, after his death.

The discussion opened unpromisingly with responses to passages from ‘Here’ and ‘The Whitsun Weddings’. John Robinson set the tone, asserting that he was ‘not fond of “Here”. Being ‘used to the landscape’ the poem had little attraction for him. Of the description of the ‘cut-price crowd’ he concluded: ‘Larkin doesn’t know them. He lines them up and inspects them’; ‘he’s a bloody snob.’ Vicky similarly found the middle (Hull) section of ‘Here’ ‘a bit sneery’, feeling it described her grandparents who would indeed have longed for an ‘electric mixer’. All four poets, true to their local accents and working-class backgrounds, disapproved of the posh middle-class Larkin.

But things looked up when they went on to comment in turn on images projected behind them, chosen to distil the essence of the poems which they subsequently read.

John Robinson was nostalgic for the pub life of the ‘Hull poets’ of the 70s and 80s. He showed images of Sean O’Brien, Peter Didsbury and Douglas Dunn together with the Polar Bear and Olde Black Boy pubs and the Humber Ferry, where one could watch the paddles churning while drinking in the bar all day. ‘Marooned’ evoked the scene as the poets ‘tottered and guffawed our way down to the ferry’, to pay for their drinks with ‘ten-bob notes’. Now, sadly, ‘they’ve bridged the river and most of the poets have left town.’ In ‘Don’t Write ‘Poetry’ he lamented: ‘for most of us poetry doesn’t pay’, and in the delightful ‘Lock, Stock and Beryl’ he invited the reader to do justice to this ‘brilliant’ title him or herself, since he cannot do so, having behaved rather badly to someone in his life called Beryl.

Joe Hakim showed a photograph of his gran’s house in Arthur Street. It was she who had determined his future by signing him up at the local library at the age of three. Later it was essential that poetry remained something pursued ‘outside school’. (Larkin would have echoed this sentiment.) He recited fluently without a text and it was refreshing to catch the chiming rhymes so audibly. He praised Larkin’s work for its ‘clockwork’ precision of technique, though he felt that Larkin would have found his work rather shallow ‘performance poetry’. His first poem was a thought-provoking update for the present generation of Larkin’s ‘This be the Verse’: ‘They fucked you over your mum and dad.’ The older generation has ‘inherited the future’, leaving the younger with reduced expectations and debt. In a similar vein he recited a sombre warning about the destructiveness of short term debt at high interest.

Vicky Foster’s presentation was more upbeat and celebratory than those of the men. She showed beautiful photographs of Bridlington beach where she had been an inhibited young girl and of an October sky over the Humber, where some of the significant events of her life had taken place. A photograph of herself with ‘my boys’ represented the importance of family to her work, and a chart of beetles and grasshoppers indicated that much of her poetry is founded on ‘bug imagery’: ‘There are moths living under my ribcage’. She became nostalgic about her schooldays around East Park and many of her pieces are ‘place poems. Her evocation of Castle Hill Hospital, ‘where we come when it’s time to go’, was moving and Larkinesque. Why not, she asked, end one’s days here ‘in good company’. As the leaves fall and the twigs of life become bare, perhaps we will find that ‘etched in the bark all along was love.’

Dean Wilson, had been encouraged to write by Larkin’s publisher, Jean Hartley, to whom he paid warm tribute. He also recalled the great Hull poet Maurice Rutherford, now in retirement in Kent. Dean showed a photograph of Sculcoates Cemetry where he had worked briefly and given a ceremonial burial to a rat he had found there. There was a haunting photograph of Withernsea which he remembered finding completely deserted one day, ‘like a film set’. The repeated phrases in some of his poems imparted a musical effect. ‘The future is medieval’ echoed intriguingly through one poem; ‘Dim the light sweetie’ through another, ending with a sad acknowledgement of the ravages of age: ‘Then dim it some more’. In ‘Eight Floors up, a visitor to a relative in hospital phones home: ‘The doctor says it’s touch and go. / The view is spectacular’. ‘Banker’s Lament’ elicits sympathy for a loveless man with too much money: ‘Love, love, love, everywhere. / When when, when will I get my share?’

For someone, like the present writer, familiar with Hull and the personalities recalled by the poets, this was a most enjoyable evening. Perhaps an outsider might have found the Hull accent, in which ‘toad’ and ‘phone’ become ‘terd’ and ‘fern’, difficult to interpret. But there seemed to be no outsiders in the highly appreciative audience. This was perhaps a local poetry-event for local people, but all the more rich and strange for that. No doubt similar events take place in Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow. As Larkin commented most of us live provincial lives, outside the metropolis.

James Booth

‘New Eyes Each Year’ finally came to the end of its highly successful run on Sunday 1st October. During the course of 13 weeks a total of 11,890 people visited the exhibition and the responses they left behind were overwhelmingly positive.

Brilliantly curated by Anna Farthing, the exhibition offered a new and exciting take on Philip Larkin based on the everyday objects with which he surrounded himself. It generated fresh interest in Larkin for many who already knew something about his life and also helped to stimulate and engage a lot of people who were getting to know Larkin for the first time.

A full review of the exhibition will appear in the next edition of About Larkin

 

 

 

 

As part of the highly popular East Yorkshire’s  Walking and Outdoors Festival, Philip Pullen, the Society’s media and publicity officer, led the first ever Larkin walk around Beverley.

Starting outside The Beverley Arms, a favourite haunt of Larkin throughout the 30 years he lived in Hull, the walk circled and criss-crossed the town centre, taking in the lanes leading to the Westwood Pastures which Larkin walked with Maeve Brennan; the Art Gallery, where he admired the Elwell paintings and bought a watercolour from an exhibition by ‘Friends of The Minster’ (“A very drab, Hully picture,” was how he described it to Monica Jones), and ending up in St Mary’s Church, a building which Larkin greatly admired and in which he took delight in discovering the ‘pilgrim rabbit’ said to be the inspiration for the white rabbit in ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ The route provided many opportunities to highlight features of Larkinalia and, in particular, the part Beverley had to play in his love life.

Larkin first visited Beverley in April 1955, a month or so after taking up his post as Librarian at Hull University, cycling the six miles or so in an impressive 35 minutes (he told his mother afterwards that it had left him with muscles “like perished rubber.”).  Typically, his initial view of the town was somewhat mixed and contradictory. “Beverley doesn’t make a great impression on me,” he wrote to Monica Jones, immediately after retuning from the visit. “ I went into the Minster, and also into the Parish Church (almost as big), but did not really grasp much.” Nevertheless, he was struck by ‘a beautiful street of mansions & chestnut trees called North Bar Without,’ and also by St Mary’s “lovely painted roof with all the early kings of England… over the choir.”

However, Larkin concluded that he didn’t want to live in the town as he felt it was “too far and too large.” He also condemned it for having no bookshop (an observation that might have been challenged by the then owners of Green’s Stationers on Saturday Market!).

Outside the Beverley Arms Hotel.

“I stayed for dinner (melon, steak, & raspberry & apple tart, with a glass of burgundy) and cycled back.”

(Larkin to his mother, 17th April 1955)

 

Saturday Market.

“Beverley is very much a country town, quite good for food but no good for anything else except gardening tools and labourers’ boots. There is a big market where they sell flowers & vegetables & cheap clothes… I always buy the same things from the same shops.”

(Larkin to his mother, 6th September 1970)

 

 

Outside Maeve Brennan’s birthplace on Wedneday Market

Despite his initial judgement, Larkin was to make frequent visits to the town throughout the rest of his life, for shopping expeditions, afternoon tea and dinner at the Beverley Arms (frequently with Maeve Brennan, who had been born in Beverley but also, on occasions with Monica Jones and Betty Mackereth). He soon developed a strong affinity for the town and many of the surrounding villages in the East Riding.

In 1956 Larkin attended a jazz concert given by the Chris Barber Band at the Regal Ballroom in Beverley (now Sleepers Restaurant) but had to leave after half of their set to catch the train back to Hull. “It cost me 9d on the train and 4/6 to get in,” he told Monica, “but it was worth it to see their faces again.”

The old Regal Ballroom and Cinema (now Sleepers Restaurant)

The walk also took in the homes of some famous Beverley residents with whom Larkin had a connection, including Sir Brynmor Jones, the University Vice Chancellor for more than half of Larkin’s tenure as Librarian, and the composer Anthony Hedges, who collaborated with Larkin to write “Bridge For The Living” in honour of the opening of the Humber Bridge. Walkers were also shown the birthplace of Maeve Brennan in Wednesday Market and discovered how Larkin took driving lessons with Betty Mackereth in the narrow streets of Beverley, greatly endangering the lives of fleeing pedestrians along Hengate.

Walkers also learned that Beverley surprisingly holds a small place in Larkin’s literary publications. In 1975, he consented to give a rare interview to the then editor of The Beverlonian, the magazine of Beverley Grammar school. ‘It so happens that in recent months I have declined to be interviewed by The Observer, The Sunday Times and the New York Times,” Larkin told the editor, Steuart Hamilton, in his letter of acceptance, “however, your magazine sounds a less frightening ordeal.” Larkin made one condition – that the interview would last for no more than half –an-hour. The resulting piece, which can be found in the East Riding Archive in Beverley’s Treasure House, provides a fascinating insight into the way Larkin approached poetry writing and his views on having his poetry set for G.C.E. examinations:

“Bernard Shaw said he never wanted to be taught in schools, because that would ensure that the younger generation hated him. But I think he is probably right. It is rather daunting to think that you are being thought of as, well, automatically dead: anybody taught in schools is dead.”

For his sheer pluck and endeavour, the enterprising young editor received a signed copy of ‘High Windows.’

 

 

Hot off the press, we now have available this fabulous Philip Larkin Society tote bag, suitably ascribed, and priced at £6 including postage and packing. They can be purchased via our online shop.

Bags can also be purchased at the New Eyes Each Year Exhibition in the Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull until October 1st 2017.

 

On Wednesday 9th August, in celebration of what would have been Philip Larkin’s 95th birthday, the University of Hull and the Philip Larkin Society welcomed around 50 guests  to an informal evening of poetry and jazz in the Brynmor Jones Library.

 

Prior to the event, visitors had the opportunity to view the New Eyes Each Year Exhibition and were given a guided tour of the library building ending up on the fabulous seventh floor which became transformed into an after hours jazz lounge, with welcome drinks and a poetry recital.

 

 

The view is fine from fifty,

Experienced climbers say’

 

Chairman Eddie Dawes reads ‘The View’

 

 

 

 

“Why Coventry!” I exclaimed.  “I was born here.”

Philip Pullen recalls Larkin’s Coventry ‘roots’ and reads ‘I Remember, I Remember.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Here silence stands like heat.’

Carole Collinson reads Larkin’s great Hull poem ‘Here.’

 

 

 

On a beautiful sunlit Sunday afternoon, committee members of the Philip Larkin Society took part in a poetry reading event in the Avenues area of Hull to help raise funds for the Victoria Avenue Fountain appeal.

The group read a selection of appropriate Larkin poems in some of the gardens along Victoria Avenue, ending up in Pearson Park, near the house in which Larkin spent 18 years of his life and which has just received Grade II listed status.

Philip Pullen and Belinda Hakes reading a suitable combination of ‘The Mower’ and ‘Cut Grass’

 

 

 

 

 

Jackie Sewell reading ‘The Trees’

 

 

 

 

 

James Booth reading ‘Sunny Prestatyn’

 

Carole Collinson reading ‘This Be The Verse’

The event ended with a group reading of ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ within earshot of 32 Pearson Park.

Hopefully Philip would have approved!

 

Blending profound meditation with stand up comedy and dressed in a pink creation designed by himself Grayson Perry held a packed Middleton Hall enthralled with his witty, highly personal account of his life and work. Middle class audiences, he noted, ‘do like a reference’, and there were allusions in plenty: Breugel, Paul Nash, Alain de Botton, medieval church architecture. But Philip Larkin recurred as letmotiv through it all. Perry related that, earlier in the day he had enjoyed the, for him, novel experience of ‘being a fan’, as he had, been shown round the ordinary sites of Larkin’s life by members of the Society. He has been ‘stuck on Larkin big time’ for many years. Like Larkin he finds ‘everyday things’ lovely. His works are concerned to ‘make the everyday resonant’.

He recollected quoting from ‘This Be the Verse’ in his Turner Prize acceptance speech in 2003, when he had teased his audience with a dangerous pause: ‘They…; concluding, to some relief, ‘may not mean to, but they do.’ An account of his dysfunctional early family life (he and his siblings were ‘like shrapnel around my mother’) led to an extended analysis of his ‘self portrait as a city’, ‘A Map of Days’. The title alludes to Larkin’s poem ‘Days’, which, he remarked is ‘partly about the idea that we live in time’. Larkin would have relished Perry’s deeply lyric conception of art. The centre of the picture is occupied by an empty space through which a tiny Grayson kicks a can down a road. There is no ‘core’. We are constantly mutable, without a fixed identity, mere sequences of experience. We may talk about geography and family, we may imagine a structure to life, but ‘we’re stuck in time. We have to move on into the next second, the next minute. We can’t relax – Sorry!’ (laughter and applause).

The philosopher Julian Baggini, Perry recalled, remarks that the word I is a verb masquerading as a noun; and, in an inspired self-analysis, he applied this truth to the very artistic process by which he produces his works: ‘I start in the top left-hand corner and carry on down’. Nevertheless, this having been admitted, he is pretty good at ‘post-rationalisation’, explaining, after the event, the ‘meaning’ at which every artistic work aims. As so often when reading Larkin, the audience was entertained by an apparent no-nonsense debunking of all pretension, which on reflection revealed itself to be a profound meditation on art, on life. The lecture roamed far and wide, as did the long-legged, shiny pink-clad lecturer, striding restlessly to and fro, moving from powerpoint image of one work to another, and ending with an extended account of his ‘A house for Essex’, or ‘Julie’s House’, or ‘The Taj Mahal on the Stour’, in Wrabness Essex, his most ambitious project to date.

This was, according to all, the most exhilarating annual guest lecture we have ever heard. Even afterwards Grayson Perry was adding to the experience (as @Alan_Measles), tweeting next day, against a photograph of himself on the train from Hull:  ‘Had he been on such a fast modern train “Whitsun Weddings” would have been a haiku.’

The major biographic exhibition ‘Larkin: New Eyes Each Year’  at the University of Hull’s Brynmor Jones Library  is now open and is already generating an enormous amount of interest from press and public alike .

The exhibition, curated by Anna Farthing and designed by Craig Oldham, offers exciting new insights into Larkin’s life, drawing on some never before seen or heard items from the vast Larkin Archive housed at Hull History Centre, including images, sounds and physical artefacts.

It is a not-to-be-missed opportunity for any Larkin afficionado and is already proving to be a real highlight in Hull’s year as the UK City of Culture.

 

 

The exhibition runs from 5^th July to 1^st October.

 

In addition, a number of Larkin-related events will be on offer in Hull and the East Riding throughout the summer. These include:

 

Larkin’ Out in Victoria – poetry readings in Victoria Avenue and Pearson Park by members of the Philip Larkin Society. Sunday 16th July

 

Larkin’s Hull – A morning stroll around Hull City Centre – Saturday 8^th July, Wednesday 9^th August (Larkin’s birthday) and Saturday 30th September with Don Lee, the Society’s External Liaison Officer. Tickets are free and are bookable in advance through Hull Box Office

‘Exploiting The Larkin Archive – A Researcher’s Paradise’. Talk by Philip Pullen on Thursday 7^th September as part of Hull Heritage Days 2017

‘Larkin About Beverley’. A guided walk of Beverley led by Philip Pullen on Friday 15^th September as part of the Yorkshire Wolds and Outdoors Walking Festival. THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED. A second walk may possibly be arranged if there is sufficient interest. Contact Beverley Tourist Information Centre (01482 391672) for details.

 

 

As ever, it was a beautiful sunny day at the Lawns as over 30 members gathered for the Philip Larkin Society Annual General Meeting. New merchandise officers, Lyn Lockwood and Rachael Galletly, welcomed us with the merchandise stall and the joyous sounds of Larkin’s Jazz in the lobby and members were very generous in buying our Larkin books, posters, cards and t-shirts. The AGM is one of the rare times that so many members of the society can get together and it was lovely to reflect on a momentous year, particularly with the unveiling of Philip’s plaque in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey and the first months of the Hull 2017 City of Culture celebrations.

Reviewing the year, Andrew Eastwood was able to report that membership has risen, our finances are steady and our Twitter followers have increased exponentially! We are all now looking forward to Grayson’s Perry’s sold out Distinguished Guest Lecture in July and the fantastic new exhibition of Larkinalia at the University of Hull opening next month and more of the Larkin’s Hull walks by Don Lee. Enormous thanks was given to the unceasing hard work of Carole Collinson for continuing to organise these amazing events.

Professor Eddie Dawes, Chairman of the Society, Andrew Eastwood, Secretary and Jackie  Sewell, Treasurer during the formal proceedings

 

 

 

 

 

Lyn Lockwood and Rachael Galletly, Mechandise Officers

 

 

 

 

 

Carole Collinson, Events Secretary

 

 

 

 

 

After an excellent lunch provided by The Lawns centre, we were all fascinated by the three talks from committee members reflecting on their incredible knowledge of Larkin.

Dr Philip Pullen introduced us to Larkin’s parents Sydney and Eva, taking us into the world of Edwardian Rhyl to recount how a phrenologist and ‘seaside quack’, Arthur Cheetham, and Wuthering Heights were instrumental in bringing the young couple together.

Professor James Booth explored Philip’s relationship with his sister Kitty, through photographs and letters, with Larkin’s familiar mixture of great affection and caustic humour, including cartoons, coloured writing paper and pointed comments about spelling mistakes. Kitty’s daughter Rosemary, members will remember, attended the Westminster Abbey ceremony in December and laid the wreath on Larkin’s plaque.

Professor Graham Chesters discussed the relationship between Larkin and Hull- a subject that still provokes strong feelings- and examined the ways that Larkin came to love Hull, to be inspired by its geographical isolation and appreciative of its lack of pretention. Graham also looked at the way Hull relates itself to Larkin, through the statue at Hull Paragon station and the upcoming City of Culture events.

 

Anthony Thwaite, President of the Philip Larkin Society, drawing the meeting to a close.

 

The latest issue of About Larkin, the Society’s journal, has now been published. It contains a wealth of new, previously unseen material relating to Larkin, including early family letters, which are reproduced as facsimiles by kind permission of his niece, Rosemary Parry.

A fascinating article by Philip Pullen provides new insights into Larkin’s childhood home in Coventry, drawing upon Larkin’s own reminiscences and photographs unearthed from the archive, including a startling image of Larkin’s parents wearing gasmasks.

James Booth throws further light on some of Larkin’s lesser known Belfast acquaintances, and the edition also includes a version of James’s talk on Larkin and Betjeman (entitled, Schoolgirls, Seaside, Churches and Death), given at a joint meeting of the Betjeman and Philip Larkin Societies at St James the Less, Pimlico in September 2016.

There is some fabulous photographic coverage of the memorialisation ceremony in Westminster Abbey, together with personal accounts from two of those who attended – Jim Thornton and Dale Salwak.

Members of the Society receive two issues of the journal each year as part of their membership. Non-members can purchase a copy at a price of £8.00 per issue for the current year’s publications or £3.00 per issue for previous years.

 

 

Professor Graham Chesters was a university colleague of Larkin’s and is Vice Chairman of the Philip Larkin Society. Larkin is linked in the national consciousness with the city of Hull, which he called ‘the town that lets you write,’ although after his appointment as the University Librarian in 1955 he had little good to say about the place. From 1958 onwards, he began to find a rich vein of urban inspiration in the architecture, people and parks of the city and something special in its isolation and surrounding countryside. This talk looks also at how Hull has responded to the iconic legacy of the poet.