April 2001

Nomination: High Windows [12 February 1967. From High Windows]

Favourite poems: very difficult. I got 10 on a first run through the Collected Poem. My final 3 are humdrum and obvious except the last [‘High Windows’]. ‘High Windows’ … seems to me to sound new depths.

Anecdotes:

My wife Mary saw him [Larkin] at the bus stop waiting for a bus into town. Said he was going to Thornton Varley’s [a Hull city centre department store] for bread. Surprised when he was told he could get it quite near where he lived.

Asked us to supper when it was announced that we were going to the States for a year. If we got near New York would I go to the shop of someone called, I think, Sam Goody, the best seller of jazz records on earth. Gave me a list. On a trip to New York I left the family looking at the sights and went to find Mr. Goody. Philip seemed duly and rightly grateful !

Richard Hoggart