The Lockdown Larkin Quiz- as the ‘poet laureate of social isolation’, who better to turn to at this time than Philip Larkin? But how well do you know your Larkin? Do you know your Monicas from your Ruths? Do you know your Brynmor Jones from your Wellingtons? Are you a toad or a sea anemone?

You can play for fun and keep your answers to yourself, or you can fill in the sheet and email it to us at plseducation@philiplarkin.com.

If you’d like exclusive early access just sign up to the newsletter on our home page (if you haven’t done so already).

What a splendid way to pass the time this weekend!

In these days of extreme, house bound, social isolation Larkin aficionados will be pleased to know that a wealth of Larkin-related material is available online to help pass the time and keep the spirits up.

Here is a, by no means definitive, range of sources…. Enjoy!
YouTube

YouTube is, of course, packed with material relating to Philip Larkin, including poetry, read by him and lots of others, and discussions. Most of the Larkin documentaries can be easily found too, including the 1962 BBC Monitor programme, ‘Down Cemetery Road’ featuring Larkin in conversation with John Betjeman: ‘Love and Death in Hull’, which has an extended interview with Ruth Siverns, Larkin’s twice time fiancee, and the 1982 South Bank Show, in which Larkin famously refused to appear in a face to face interview but allowed himself to be filmed from over his shoulder while turning the pages of one of his poetry workbooks. ‘Through The Lens of Larkin’ and Return to Larkinland’ are other joys.

In terms of poetry reading, highlights include Dave Lee’s brlliant films featuring Sir Tom Courteney:

‘Here’

‘This Be The Verse’

Larkin and his mother were great fans of ‘The Archers’ so this reading of ‘Church Going’ by Tim Bentinck who plays David Archer, is an absolute gem.

Larkin25

The 2010 ‘Larkin 25’ Festival marked the 25th anniversary of Larkin’s death and generated a whole range of work inspired by Larkin’s own creativity in the areas of poetry, drama, film, dance, visual arts, song, photography, public sculpture and art. You can get a flavour of it by viewing the archived web pages.

Following on from ‘Larkin25’, ’Sounding The Larkin Trail’ formed part of the ’Toads Revisited’ Festival in Hull in 2015 and involved a musical trail from Spring Bank Cemetery to Paragon Station ending up in Ye Olde Black Boy. It was put together by Dave Gawthorpe, a Hull musician, and part of the Hillbilly Troupe.

BBC Sounds

There is a wealth of Larkin related material available via the BBC Sounds App. The following are highly recommended:

I Was Larkin’s Magician

Featuring our Chair, Eddie Dawes, founder of Hull University’s biochemistry department and a world renowned magician who performed tricks for his friend Philip Larkin.

Alan Bennett on his love of Philip Larkin

Featured in Radio ‘s ‘Today’ programme on National Poetry Day 2014

Free Thinking – Sound Frontiers: Books of 1946

This programme explores some of the key books published in 1946, including Back, by Henry Green, Jill by Philip Larkin and The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin, the pseudonym of Larkin’s great friend, Bruce Montgomery.

Prom Plus Literary – Philip Larkin

Recorded during the BBC Proms season in 2014, Andrew Motion and Kate Clanchy discuss Larkin’s writing, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of ‘The Whitsun Weddings’.

The New Elizabethans In a series of programmes marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, James Naughtie examined the lives and impact of the men and women who had given the second Elizabethan age its character. This episode focuses on Larkin.

Two fascinating programmes feature the poet Sean O’Brien. The first ‘I, By the Tide of Humber’ was recorded in the run up to Hull’s year as City of Culture in 2017 and reflects on the way in which the city’s water and landscapes have inspired poets like himself and Larkin. The second programme, ‘The Essay’ recorded during the BBC’s ‘Contains Strong Language’ Festival in Hull in 2018, features a comparison of the work of Larkin and Ted Hughes.

An episode of Alistair Cooke’s ‘Letters To America’ from 2003 has the presenter reflecting on Larkins life and, in particular, his attitude towards children.

The ‘Desert Island Discs’ archive is also well worth visiting, not only for Larkin’s own appearance in July 1976 but also that of his first biographer, Andrew Motion, in which he discusses his friendship with Larkin and includes Larkin reading ‘Here’ as one of his record choices. . Larkin’s great friend, Barbara Pym, appeared in July 1978 and  recalls how Larkin championed her when her books went out of fashion, leading to her being shortlised for the Booker Prize. Kingsley Amis appeared twice (which would not have pleased Larkin!) – initially in May 1961 (episode not available) and again in November 1986. He discusses meeting Larkin for the first time at Oxford, their shared love of jazz and the influence Larkin had on ‘Lucky Jim’ (though, typically, he doesn’t give his friend proper credit for this).

SoundCloud

SoundCloud also contains a vast repository of Larkinalia, including two recordings of the Larkin Society’s Guest Lectures:

Archie Burnett 2013 ‘Biography and Poetry: Philip Larkin’

Blake Morrison 2018 ‘Larkin and Freedom’

There is also a fascinating recording made of Larkin’s opening of the new Library at Leicester University in 1975 which reveals something of Larkins wonderfully self-deprecating humour:

‘Any librarian is bound to welcome a new library, and, if he should also be a spare time writer, he’s apt to feel like a director of Ladbookes on contemplating a new racecourse…’

Podcasts

Apart from our brilliant ‘Tiny in all that Air’ podcasts, there are several others featuring Larkin

Shedunnit

Caroline Crampton’s excellent podcast covering the mysteries of detective stories includes an episode featuring Larkin’s favourite crime writer, Gladys Mitchell (the title of this episode, ‘The Great Gladys’ was Larkin’s nickname for Mitchell). In the second section of the podcast, Crampton discusses Larkin’s high regard for Mitchell’s work and for crime fiction in general.

Backlisted

A literary podcast ‘giving life to old books’. Episode 74, recorded at the 2018 Port Eliot Festival focuses on a discussion of A Girl in Winter

Freedom, Books, Flowers & the Mood – the TLS podcast

The March 8 2018 edition  ‘Writers and their mothers’ centres on a conversation with Dale Salwak about his anthology, ‘Writers and Their Mothers’  which includes discussion of Philip Pullen’s essay ‘No Villainous Mother – The Life of Eva Larkin’.

Our commemoration of Larkin’s death this year is entitled: ‘We need to talk about Philip… New Pespectives’ and will take place at The Royal Station Hotel in Ferensway, Hull.

2.00 Extraordinary General Meeting to approve a revised constitution for the Society.

3.00  ‘We need to talk about Philip… New Pespectives’: a presentation by Committee members on recent and future initiatives as PLS moves towards its 25th year, including, a possible electronic version of the journal, the launch of the PLS podcast, our Twitter profile; the future of the website and planning for the 2022 Centenary year. Members’ suggestions will be welcomed.

4.00 Refreshments

4.30 Questions

5.00 Close

This event will be free of charge, but please let Carole Collinson know if you plan to attend. Carole Collinson, 32 Queen’s Drive, Cottingham, East Yorkshire, HU16 4EL. chriscarole@hotmail.com

The Philip Larkin Society is very pleased to be supporting The Mechanicals Band,  a group of Coventry based musicians and actors who are developing a project  exploring the life and work of the poet Philip Larkin through music and theatre.

Performances of ‘The Righteous Jazz’ will be taking place in Hull, at the Hull Truck Theatre, on Saturday 2nd November 2019 and in Coventry, at The Tin At The Coal Vaults on Thursday 14th November.

Not to be missed!

The Philip Larkin Society is pleased to announce exciting plans for a year long celebration of Larkin’s centenary in 2022.

Under the banner of ‘Larkin100’ we intend to work with partner organisations and supporters to encourage and promote the development of a broad range of creative events, exhibitions and performances throughout the year of 2022 and across the British Isles as a way of celebrating and building upon Larkin’s literary achievements and legacy.

Alongside our current partners, the University of Hull, the Hull History Centre and Hull City Council, we have begun to envisage an artistic celebration of Larkin in relation to place, inspired by his achievements in the areas of literature, jazz, photography and librarianship.

The complex notion of ‘place’ for Philip Larkin will provide a powerful and creative theme for ‘Larkin 100’, enabling a distinct focus for national celebration as well as a practical means of sustaining Larkin related activity across the entire year. We hope this will include all the major places associated with Philip Larkin, in particular those where he lived and worked, but also envisage smaller celebrations in places which he travelled to, holidayed in, or did business at (some of which may, as yet, be unaware of a Larkin connection) which also held significance for his life and creative achievements.

Our intention is to build upon the major successes of the ‘Larkin 25’ festival in 2010, which marked the 25^th anniversary of Larkin’s death and which generated much new work inspired by Larkin’s own creativity in the areas of poetry, drama, film, dance, visual arts, song, photography, public sculpture and art. More recently, the highly acclaimed ‘New Eyes Each Year’ exhibition at the University of Hull which took place during Hull’s year as City of Culture in 2017 successfully introduced Larkin to new and younger audiences and helped to generate a new creative momentum which we hope to sustain. We also anticipate a growing interest in Larkin during his home city of Coventry’s year in the cultural limelight in 2021 and, potentially, as a natural part of their legacy activity.

Plans for 2022 are at an early stage and we are highly conscious of the need to involve others who would welcome the opportunity to work in partnership with us or who would like support this initiative in some other way. Our intention is to seek external funding through the Arts Council and the National Lottery Heritage Lottery Fund. We are therefore asking for expressions of interest and support and, above all, ideas for potential events and promotions of Larkin across the broad spectrum of the arts and across the country.

For further details contact larkin100@philiplarkin.com

We are delighted that Coventry, the birthplace of Philip Larkin, is to be the next UK City of Culture commencing in 2021. It is fitting, too, that the City should be taking on the mantle from Hull, the place where Larkin spent most of his adult life and which shares many historical and cultural similarities.

The ‘New Eyes Each Year’ exhibition has been a hugely successful centre piece of Hull’s 2017 year and there could not be a better opportunity to carry forward the fresh and exciting new perspective on Larkin which this event, and other Larkin inspired happenings during 2017  have generated (not least, of course, the excellent lecture by our Annual Distinguished Lecturer, Grayson Perry).

Coventry’s successful bid provides a really powerful opportunity for the Society to offer its support, expertise and enthusiasm to ensure that Larkin becomes a massive theme in 2021. Afterall, the year will be a lead in to the 2022 centenary celebrations we are already starting to think about!

Of course there will be many who will say that Larkin held a negative attitude towards his home city, a place he saw as ‘not worth stopping for’ and which generated a childhood of ‘forgotten boredom’. But as with so much of Larkin, and as with every one of his dwelling places, the reality is far more complex. ’Hull is a dreary place,’ he once told his mother, ‘as bad as Coventry.’ In fact both cities carried huge significance for him and suited him well, even though he might have been reluctant to admit to it. And Larkin would have been the first to note that, both cities have their ‘hidden elegancies.’

The Philip Larkin Society already has a history of successful Coventry-based activities stretching back almost to its origins. On the 9^th August 1997 Don Lee led the first ever birthday walk in Coventry. The route of this walk was later to become the basis for the excellent ‘Philip Larkin’s Coventry’ trail leaflet published in 2009.

In January 1998, the Society’s President, Anthony Thwaite, unveiled the Larkin plaque on Coventry Railway Station, on Platform 1, where Larkin used to set off for ‘all those family hols.’

Conferences and study days have been held at King Henry VIII School, where Larkin was a pupil from to 1930 to 1940 . The latest of these took place on 2^nd December 2015, when James Booth, Philip Pullen and Don Lee all spoke at a Larkin Symposium.

Coventry has also featured in several articles in About Larkin, the latest being Philip Pullen’s April 2017 piece on ‘Penvorn’, the Larkin family house, which disappeared under the Coventry inner city ring road in 1971.

One of the centre pieces of Coventry 2021 is intended to be a 2.2 mile ring road poem. Now there’s a challenge for Larkin afficianados!