Tiny In All That Air

This episode features a writer who would be familiar not only to Hull residents but also to keen telly watchers, radio listeners and theatre goers across the country. Alan Plater was born in Jarrow in 1935  but having moved to Hull when he was just three years old, the city was pleased to adopt him and he lived there for much of his life. His most famous writing credit was probably Z Cars. Alan Plater was also a huge fan of jazz music and his ITV comedy drama The Beiderbecke Affair staring James Bolam and Barbara Flynn in the mid 1980s was a massive success. He went on to win countless awards and accolades for his wonderful writing.

Alan Plater was enormously generous with his time, and made a huge contribution to the Hull arts scene of the 1960s and 70s, developing a gentle friendship with Philip Larkin along the way. This speech was recorded on 28th November 1998,  and was given at that year’s PLS AGM.

Thank you so much to Alexandra Cann who is the agent for the Alan Plater Literary Estate Ltd for giving us the initial approval to use this recording, and to Steve Plater and John Rubinstein who are the joint Directors of the Lit Estate.

If you are interested in seeing an Alan Plater play this summer, then the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough is putting on a production of the Blonde Bombshells of 1943 which is full of swing and jazz, from 2-26th August 2023.

https://sjt.uk.com/events/blonde-bombshells-of-1943

References:

Alfred Bradley https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/about/successes/alfred-bradley-award/

·         The Occasional Smell of Fish (poem)

·         Waiting for Gladys (Becket parody)

·         Bete Noire (Hull poetry journal)

·         Z Cars One Day In Spring Street

·         Jazz Notes- BBC radio programme

·         On Sunday January 4th I had Mild Constipation

·         Names (poem written for Three Trawlers fundraising) ‘my only grown up poem’

·         Swallows on the Water (play)

·         The Fosdyke Saga sonnet ( BBC radio tripe themed -parody of The Forsyth Saga,)- sent a copy to Larkin who responded with a signed copy of the High Windows calling him ‘sonnetteer extraordinaire’

·         Sweet Sorrow (1990) Plater’s play about Larkin

Matthew Arnold, Ogden Nash, Dylan Thomas, Alan Bleasdale, Ted Hughes, Barry Hines, Vera Wise, Henry Livings, Alex Glasgow, Carla Lane, Adrian Mitchell, Allan Ginsburg, Carole Mills (rude songs and low down blues), Robin Kay (flamenco guitarist), Max Boylett (jazz pianist), Ian Clarke and Chris Rowe, Sid and Norm (artists without category), Joe Orton, The Beatles, John Ford (director of westerns), Roger McGough, Jimmy James (music hall performer),Ken Wagstaff- (footballing hero), Fleur Adcock, Jeff Nuttall (had a pee in a bucket on stage), Roni Scott, Suzi Quatro, Mike Bradwell (theatre director), Jess Stacy (jazz pianist), Shakespeare, Max Wall, Peter Brooke (director),  and many more Hull poets listed by Plater.

Pubs mentioned – (in Leeds and Hull) The Bluebell, The Bull, The Fenton, the Hayworth Arms,

Philip Larkin judging poetry competition for the Hull Arts Centre at Spring Street in 1970 which eventually became Hull Truck Theatre.

The loss of the three Hull trawlers in winter of 1967, 59 trawlerman died- the poets organised a reading and Plater wrote ‘Names’.

Produced by Lyn Lockwood and Gavin Hogg

At the time of recording this podcast we received the sad news that our founding chairman Professor Eddie Dawes had passed away on the 3rd March 2023 at the age of 97. Gavin and I were very privileged to be able to record the very first Tiny podcast with Eddie at his home in Hull. Eddie was so open to new ideas and ways of doing things. He was so supportive of my crazy idea to have a society podcast and was extremely patient as I fussed around with my microphone and notes. But I knew that Eddie had to be our very first guest- he was- and still is- the world’s leading authority on the history of magic, a pioneering biochemist, the PLS chairman for over 20 years and  good friends with Philip Larkin himself. A remarkable lifetime and a really lovely, gentle person who, as current chair Graham Chesters said, did indeed wear his exceptional gifts lightly.

Our guests this week are Clarissa Hard, PLS trustee and editor of About Larkin, and Francesca Gardner, who join me to talk about things and objects- objects in Larkin’s poetry and the significant objects in Larkin’s life; cigarette packets, socks, lawnmowers, vases, photo albums and more.

This episode’s guests are Gavin Hogg and Bruce Lindsay and we are discussing Ivor Cutler, poet, writer, teacher and musician, who was born Jan 15th 1923 and so is a close chronological contemporary of Philip Larkin, although their paths never crossed. We look at their surreal sense of humour, their different experiences of World War II, their approach to poetry, letter writing, jazz, public performance and the cultural landscape of Britain in the twentieth century.

Bruce Lindsay, Ivor Cutler: Life Outside the Sitting Room (Equinox, 2023)

This episode welcomes three Larkin100 trustees to look back on 2022; Graham Chesters, Phil Pullen, and teacher, writer and poet Vicky Foster who has a very particular connection to Hull and the work of Philip Larkin.

This episode features Belfast arts manager Hugh Odling- Smee and PLS trustee Philip Pullen who, as part of his centenary lecture tour, took part in the 2022 Belfast International Arts Festival with a talk on Larkin in Belfast. Hugh and Phil discuss the literary heritage that Belfast enjoys and Larkin’s life in Belfast between 1950 and 1955.

Books and writers discussed:

Daniel Vince joined the PLS board of trustees earlier this year and is currently studying for a Masters by research on the post-war novel at the University of York having graduated from Canterbury Christ Church University earlier this year. He is also an antiquarian book seller and can often be found hunting down rare and wonderful books. When the Barbara Pym Society invited a member of the PLS to present a paper at their AGM in Oxford this year, Daniel bravely took up the challenge. Daniel speaks to Lyn and reads his talk A Few Green Leaves: Pym, Larkin and Rural Retirement.

Larkin texts referenced: Aubade, Money, Spring, Here, Toads, The Mower, Cut Grass, High Windows, The Importance of Elsewhere,  A Girl In Winter (Faber 1947)

Barbara Pym novels: A Few Green Leaves, A Quartet in Autumn, The Sweet Dove Died

Other writers/references:  Ending Up by Kingsley Amis, The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, Hippopotamus by TS Eliot,

Further reading: The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne (2021) A Very Private Eye: The Diaries, Letters And Notebooks Of Barbara Pym ed. Hazel Holt (Macmillan 1984)

Presented by Lyn Lockwood.

Dr Sam Perry teaches English Literature at the University of Hull, where he is a member of the Philip Larkin Centre for Poetry & Creative Writing. He is the author of Chameleon Poet: R.S. Thomas and the Literary Tradition (Oxford University Press) and is currently working on a long- term project exploring the representation of children and childhood in modern poetry.

Other writers discussed/mentioned: WB Yeats/Ted Hughes/Edward Thomas/ RS Thomas/Seamus Heaney/ William Wordsworth/William Blake/ Thomas Hardy/ Dylan Thomas /Charles Dickens/JD Salinger/Virginia Woolf/Kingsley Amis/Sylvia Plath/Ann Thwaite

Larkin poems discussed: Sunny Prestatyn/ Essential Beauty/The Large Cool Store/ Mr Bleaney/Aubade/Home is So Sad/ Wild Oats/ Dockery and Son/Ignorance/Afternoons/An Arundel Tomb/ I Remember, I Remember/ This Be The Verse/High Windows

Other references: Jim Sutton’s letters to Philip Larkin/The art of Rene Magritte (1898-1967)/Larkin’s Doodles/Letters to Monica Ed. Anthony Thwaite (Faber 2011)/The Secret Garden - Francis Hodgson Burnett (Heinemann 1911)/The Image of Childhood- Peter Coveney (Penguin 1967)

Presented by Lyn Lockwood.

Welcome to a very special episode of Tiny In All That Air, celebrating Philip Larkin's 100th birthday. This episode has been made with the generous help of many of our fantastic honorary vice presidents, who have many different connections with Philip Larkin, the man and the writer: former secretary of State for Health and Social care, Alan Johnson; Larkin biographer, friend and literary executor Andrew Motion; writer David Quantick; writer Ann Thwaite; academic and magician Dale Salwak; artist Grayson Perry; poet Imtiaz Dharker; sculptor Martin Jennings; writer Blake Morrison; Professor James Booth; founding chairman Professor Eddie Dawes; and our current chair Rosie Millard. Thank you so much to all our HVPs past and present for all their support of the society and thank you to you for listening.

Presented by Lyn Lockwood.

This is the King Henry VIII School, Coventry takeover! Led by the school's Librarian and Archivist Helen Cooper, and introduced by former Head of English Sheila Woolf, the pupils of Larkin's former school in Coventry have recorded a fascinating short fictional play written by Fred Holland that explores the Larkin family during Word War II. Helen Cooper and Phil Pullen (Chair of Larkin100 and Larkin researcher) join Lyn to discuss the writing and performance of the play, as well as exploring the play's many themes- family life, gender identity, jazz music, the destruction of Coventry, the rise of fascism and pre-war Germany. The performance also includes full readings of three very relevant Larkin poems.

Also profound thanks to Dan Balcam, the School’s Performing Arts Technician who recorded the performance and added the sound effects, and Sheila Woolf for her help with the adaptation of the play and her introduction explaining its history. Most of all, however, thank you very much indeed to the cast of Year 12 and Year 13 pupils who found time in their busy schedules to perform the play:

Clemi Andrews: Eva Larkin

Leong Yi Au: Narrator #2

Ben Cartwright: Philip Larkin

Simran Cheema: Narrator #1

Aston McKeown: Captain Stanley Hector, Chief Constable of Coventry

Ocean: Sydney Larkin, Coventry City Treasurer

Adam Price: Roger Smythe

Poems: Ultimatum, This Be the Verse, Snow In April, For Sidney Bechet

Other texts and references:

Sir Oswald Mosley, Sir Barry Domvile, Diana Mitford, Peaky Blinders (2013-2022 BBC), James Booth Life, Art and Love (2014, Bloomsbury), Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions (Faber & Faber 2015),  Andrew Motion Philip Larkin A Writer's Life (Faber 1993)

Selected letters of Philip Larkin (1993, Faber & Faber)  Barbara Pym Some Tame Gazelle (1950, Virago Modern Classics), Julia Boyd Travellers in the Third Reich  (2018,Elliott & Thompson Limited)

John Kenyon's article about Philip Larkin can be read here

In this episode, Lyn talks to Emeritus AC Bradley Professor of Modern Literature at Liverpool University Kelvin Everest and writer, lecturer and poet Dr Jane Bluett, who is the poetry editor for English In Education. 

Monica and Philip met in Leicester in 1947, and although Philip soon left Leicester for Belfast and then Hull, Monica stayed as a lecturer at Leicester University for the next 34 years until her retirement. Their life long love affair was a source of great joy and great anguish for both of them. Kelvin tells us about his two years working alongside Monica as a young lecturer in the late 1970s. Jane reflects on Monica’s role as the woman in the background - like Emma Hardy or Viv Eliot - and discusses her influence on Larkin’s poetry. Monica was born on 7th May 2022 and so this podcast marks her centenary which, of course, she shares with Philip Larkin.

Having met through their shared background of poetry and education, Lyn and Jane also read their own poems about Philip Larkin.

References:

Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica ed. Anthony Thwaite (2011), Andrew Motion: A Writer’s Life (1994), John Sutherland: Monica Jones, Philip Larkin and Me: Her Life and Long Loves (2021), Martin Amis: Inside Story (2020), Philip Larkin: Selected Letters ed. Anthony Thwaite (1993) George Crabbe: The Borough (1810), Benjamin Britten: Peter Grimes (1943), Dennis Telford: Monica Dearest Bun, A Haydon Bridge Love Story (2014) Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim (1954).

Haydon Bridge blue plaque: http://www.haydon-bridge.co.uk/larkin.php

Larkin poems referred to: An Arundel Tomb, Annus Horribilis, Show Saturday, Talking In Bed, Wild Oats.

In this episode, Lyn talks to Deb Fisher, Chair of the Barbara Pym Society and writer and actor Triona Adams, also a member of the Barbara Pym Society.  We discuss how it was Larkin who initiated the friendship between the two writers in 1961 when he wrote a letter to Pym admiring her novels.  Both Oxford graduates, and resolutely unmarried, they communicated by letter for 14 years until they finally met in person at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford.  In 1977, the Times Literary Supplement printed an article where contributors named who they considered the most underrated writers of the previous seventy-five years. Pym was the only living writer to appear on the list twice, chosen by  Lord David Cecil and Philip Larkin. Larkin praised her “unique eye and ear for the small poignancies and comedies of everyday life.” Their friendship, although mainly on paper, was remarkably kind and supportive, underpinned by their love of tradition, domesticity and of each others’ work. We talk about the qualities of Pym's writing, her life and loves, and her lasting legacy, with loyal readers and researchers all around the world today.

References:

The novels of Barbara Pym from Crampton Hodnet (written 1940)  to A Few Green Leaves (1980), BBC R4 Women’s Hour, Andrew Motion A Writer’s Life (1994), Paula Byrne The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym (2021), Hazel Holt  A Lot to Ask: A Life of Barbara Pym  (1990), Barbara Pym A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Diaries and Letters (1984)

In this episode, Lyn is joined by PLS Treasurer Thomas Gordon, writer and musician Robin Allender and writer, comedian and BBC radio presenter John Robins. The conversation focuses on some of Robin and John's favourite Larkin poems, such as Deceptions and I Remember, I Remember and their huge knowledge and love for Larkin's work.

Poems discussed: Sad Steps, High Windows, The Whitsun Weddings, Absences, Here, Livings, The Building, How, Dockery and Son, An Arundel Tomb, Deceptions, Afternoons, Mythological Introduction, I Remember, I Remember, Vers de Societie, The Life With a Hole in It, Toads, Toads Revisited, Home is So Sad, For Sidney Bechet, Going Going, The Mower

Larkin prose: All What Jazz, Required Writing

Other texts and references: Faber Book of Modern Verse- ed. Peter Porter, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein (1937), On The Road, Hamlet, Yeats, John Betjeman, DH Lawrence, Iain Banks, Somewhere Becoming Rain by Clive James (2019), The Waste Land by TS Eliot (1922), Jackson Pollock, Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce (1939), Lennon Ono- The Wedding Album (1969), Queen, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart Safe As Milk (1967), Spin Magazine, Melody Maker, Bjork Venus as a Boy, Howl by Allen Ginsburg (1965), In Love With Hell by William Palmer (2021), The Thirsty Muse by Tom Dardis (1991), Kingsley Amis, Peter Cook, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943), Tom Paulin, The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951), Joe Rogan (podcaster)

In this episode, Lyn talks to Dr James Underwood, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Huddersfield and Deputy Director of the Ted Hughes Network. James's book  Early Larkin (2021) reveals so many aspects of Larkin's less well known writing and charts Larkin's growth into the towering poet he eventually became. We look at poems, letters and prose, and how Larkin shaped his world through his writing.

Larkin poems referred to- -Livings, Dockery and Son, The Whitsun Weddings, Afternoons, The Mower, Dublinesque, The Winter Palace, I See A Girl Dragged By The Wrists, Femmes Damnes, A School in August.

Other writers and references: Maeve Brennan The Philip Larkin I Knew (2002), James Booth Philip Larkin, Life, Art and Love (2014),Selected Letters of Philip Larkin 1940-1985 (1992 ed. Anthony Thwaite), Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions by Philip Larkin (2002 ed. James Booth), W. B. Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” from The Poems of W. B. Yeats: A New Edition.

In this episode, PLS trustee and Larkin100 Chair Philip Pullen and PLS trustee and merchandise officer Rachael Galletly join Lyn to reflect back on 2021, look ahead to 2022, read some poetry and talk Larkin.

Larkin poems/novels discussed- Toads, Toads Revisited, The Whitsun Weddings, Show Saturday, High Windows, The Old Fools and Dockery and Son.

In this episode, Joe James from the Right In The Schoolies podcast and PLS Trustee Alex Howard talk to Lyn about their definitions of horror and where they see horror in Larkin's writing.

Larkin poems/novels discussed- High Windows, Sunny Prestatyn, The Old Fools, At Grass, Aubade, Mr Bleaney, Ambulances, The Building, If, My Darling, Jill, Love Again.

Other writers and references: Paradise Lost by John Milton (1667), the work of Stephen King, the Metaphysical Poets, Oscar Wilde, 'the Seven ages of man' speech from As You Like It (1599), MR James, Wuthering Heights (1847) By Emily Bronte, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson, Hannibal Lector (Red Dragon by Thomas Harris 1981), Steve Coogan's The Reckoning (in production), The Theatre of the Absurd, Bertolt Brecht, Cannibal Holocaust ( dir.Rugero Deodato,1980), Basil (1852) by Wilkie Collins, Alice in Wonderland (1865) By Lewis Carroll,

Exclusive setting of If, My Darling by Wes Finch, featuring Jools Street and John Parker. Editorial assistance from Ben Haines.

Presented by Lyn Lockwood.

The Society is looking forward to the Centenary celebrations next year, but we wanted to mark what would have been Larkin's 99th birthday this year by reading his poems. The readings have been recorded and submitted by PLS society members, trustees, honorary vice presidents and podcast listeners from across the world. Larkin was famously reluctant to read his poems in public, but we hope listeners enjoy hearing his words being read out loud. Please raise a glass and join us with our birthday celebrations! This is the second of two parts.

Poems and readers featured as follows.

The Challenges of Life

Reasons for Attendance - Alex Howard

Continuing to Live - Adam Crawford

Reference Back - Philip Watts

Sad Steps - Richard Johnston

Home is So Sad - Carmel Morgan

The Darker Side of Life

Faith Healing - Robert Johnson

A Study of Reading Habits - Tim Holmes

Aubade – Roy Evans

Love and Compassion

An April Sunday - Sue Mendus

The Mower – Maureen Docherty

Places Loved Ones - Rich Tuner

The Old Fools - Michael Farman

At Grass - Julian Wild

Experience

Long Sight in Age - Clarissa Hard

Started to Say - Martin Locock

I Remember I Remember - Nigel Mc Bride

Wild Oats - Wes Finch

Dockery and Son - Jim Moliski

Celebration

To the Sea - Daniel Gallimore

The Trees - Philip Watts

High Windows - Tony de Kok

Here  - Rosie Millard

1952-1977 - Chris Sewart

Broadcast - Charlie Connolly

The Society is looking forward to the Centenary celebrations next year, but we wanted to mark what would have been Larkin's 99th birthday this year by reading his poems. The readings have been recorded and submitted by PLS society members, trustees, honorary vice presidents and podcast listeners from across the world. Larkin was famously reluctant to read his poems in public, but we hope listeners enjoy hearing his words being read out loud. Please raise a glass and join us with our birthday celebrations! This is the first of two parts.

Poems and readers featured as follows. 

The Challenges of Life

This Be the Verse - Helen Cooper

Life with a Hole in It - Wade Newman

First Sight - Gregg Walker

Days - David Quantick

Reasons for Attendance - Richard Johnston

The Darker Side of Life

The Building - Anne Gibson

Sunny Prestatyn - Wes Finch

Afternoons - Rachael Galletly

Mr Bleaney - Martin Duckworth

Love and Compassion

The Mower - Yuanyou Zhang

An April Sunday Brings the Snow – Hans Rutten

Places, Loved Ones - Laura Wilson

Love Songs in Age - Hugh Lester

Born Yesterday - Carmel Morgan

An Arundel Tomb - Ann Thwaite

Experience

Wires - Gregg Walker

Wild Oats – Cath Sked

New Eyes Each Year - Tony Peyser

This is the First Thing - Graham Chesters

Lines on a Young Ladies Photograph Album - Ingrid Keith

Toads Revisited - Tim Whitaker

Celebration

The Trees - Polly McMullan

The School in August - Casey Allen

Skin - Bert Molsom

To The Sea - Sally Button

Coming - Paul Evans

Is It For Now or For Always? - Lorna Simes

Here - Nick Smales

Please also head over to the Right In The Schoolies podcast for more Larkin poetry and check out Alan Johnson (honorary vice president of the Philip Larkin Society) reading Friday Night at the Royal Station Hotel on our Twitter feed. Thank you to all our contributors. Keep an eye out for Part 2 and many more readings.

Presented by Lyn Lockwood.

The Philip Larkin Society has a formal structure which helps us to run effectively. This has allowed us to appoint a President (Anthony Thwaite 1930-2021) and a number of honorary vice-presidents. HVPs support the charity both publicly and behind the scenes and generously lend their name to our work. Recently we have been able to appoint some new HVPs, three of whom we speak to in this episode. Rosie Millard, journalist and University of hull Alumnus, sculptor Martin Jennings and writer David Quantick. They all reflect on their love of Larkin and their thoughts about the PLS. We also have a reading of The Whitsun Weddings by another new HVP, writer Ann Thwaite, OBE.

Philip Larkin Collected Poems, edited by Anthony Thwaite, 1988 Faber

Larkin has a rather curious place in the academic world- a little bit on the edge of things (maybe that’s how he would have liked it?). Lyn chats to Dr Alex Howard, Dr Kyra Piperides and Clarissa Hard who are all at different stages of their doctoral studies on Larkin’s writing. Alex and Clarissa have recently become new trustees of the Philip Larkin Society. We also have a reading of Church Going from PLS member Joe James.

Poems discussed: Aubade, High Windows, Take One Home for the Kiddies, Myxomatosis, At Grass, The Whitsun Weddings, Here, The Mower, The Old Fools, The Winter Palace

Topics discussed: Teaching and studying Larkin, Larkin and landscape, younger readers of Larkin, Ted Hughes, TS Eliot, Down Cemetery Road (BBC)

Philip Larkin was not just a poet, he was also a jazz journalist. His collected articles can be found in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–1971. (Faber and Faber. 1985). Larkin's love of jazz was less prominent in his poetry, but one poem stands out as a startling 'love song' to New Orleans  - For Sidney Bechet, (to be found in The Whitsun Weddings, 1964). In this episode we tell the fascinating story of saxophonist Sidney Bechet and how his life and music interwove with that of Larkin's. We have some amazing jazz to accompany us and some voices of the time, opening with Philip Larkin himself.

For Sidney Bechet from The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin (1964, Faber)- reading taken from The Sunday Sessions (2009)

Philip Larkin, Life, Art and Love by James Booth (Bloomsbury 2015)

Tracks from Larkins’ Jazz (Properbox 55):

· Sidney Bechet and his New Orleans Footwarmers- Nobody Knows the Way I Feel This Morning and Blue Horizon

· Frankie Traumbauer and his Orchestra- Way Down Yonder in New Orleans

Other jazz tracks:

Sidney Bechet- Sheik of Araby and Petit Fleur

Monty Sunshine – Petit Fleur

Charlie Parker – A Night in Tunisia

Thom Yorke on Desert Island Discs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008qg3

La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle, 2016)

Treat It Gentle by Sidney Bechet (Cassell, 1960)

Sidney Bechet The Wizard of Jazz by John Chilton (Macmillan 1987)

An Enormous Yes In memoriam Philip Larkin (1922-1985)(Peterloo Poets, 1986)

Professor Zachary Leader is Professor of English Literature at the University of Roehampton. He grew up in California but has lived in Britain for over forty years. He was educated at Northwestern University, Trinity College, Cambridge and Harvard and is the author of several books including Reading Blake's Songs, Writer's Block, Revision and Romantic Authorship.

In 2000 Harper Collins published his edited Letters of Kingsley Amis followed by a highly regarded biography of Amis before he turned his attention to Saul Bellow, with the second part of acclaimed two-volume biography published in 2019.  He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.  Professor Leader’s work on Amis is filled with insights into the lifelong friendship between Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin and this is what we’ll be discussing today.

References:

Kingsley Amis novels; Lucky Jim (1954), Take a Girl Like You (1960), The Anti-Death League (1966), The Alteration (1976), The Old Devils (1986)

Larkin poems: Church Going ( published 1954), Posterity (published 1976)

Kingsley Amis poem: Drinking Song (published in The New Statesman in 1978)

The Letters of Kingsley Amis, edited by Z. Leader, London: HarperCollins, 2000; New York: Talk/Miramax, 1208pp. (2001)

The Life of Kingsley Amis, Hardcover, New York: Random House, 1008 pp. (2006)


Presented by Lyn Lockwood and Julian Henry. 

Phil Pullen (Larkin researcher and chair of Larkin100) and Rachael Galletly (PLS Trustee) join us to discuss Larkin poems that are either about or are directly addressed to specific people in his life; Eva Larkin, Kingsley Amis and Winifred Arnott. We also find out about Larkin’s attitude to summer, his favourite poetic phrase, Kingsley Amis’s wilder moments, what book Rachael nicked from a library, and who made Philip Larkin ‘yowl’. 

Mother, Summer, I, Heads on the Women’s Ward, Reference Back, Hospital Visits, Love Songs in Age, Letter to a Friend About Girls, The Old Fools, Livings, Lines on a Young Ladies Photograph Album, Deceptions, Born Yesterday, Wild Oats, A Study in Reading Habits, Home is So Sad, The Mower, Maiden Name, Afternoons, Show Saturday, An Arundel Tomb, Broadcast, Poem about Oxford, Talking in Bed. 

Letters Home (ed. James Booth, Faber and Faber, 2018) 

Inside Story by Martin Amis (Jonathan Cape, 2020) 

The Letters of Kingsley Amis (ed. Zachary Leader, HarperCollins 2000) 

The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin (ed. Archie Burnett, Faber and Faber 2012) 

The Poet’s Plight by James Booth (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2005) 

-------------------------------------------

Presented by Lyn Lockwood. 

The second of our two podcasts with a John Betjeman focus, our guest is writer and railway historian Greg Morse. Topics include Betjeman and Larkin’s relationship with the media, twentieth century architecture and cultural history and, of course, lots of poetry, both Larkin and Betjeman. 

Larkin poems mentioned: Church Going, Whitsun Weddings, High Windows, This Be The Verse, Toads, Essential Beauty, Home is So Sad, High Windows. 

Betjeman poems mentioned: Executive, A Lincolnshire Church, Death In Leamington, Croydon, Devonshire St W1, Summoned by Bells. 

A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin (Faber and Faber, 1947) 

Anne O'Neill and Julian Henry are newer members of the Philip Larkin Society team and many people will have already been feeling the benefit of their fantastic work on the PL Instagram page. Julian is also a trustee and is now supporting the society committee and its planning and events work. Anne is based in County Kerry and Julian in Oxford. We got together to talk about Larkin in the media, Twitter, Instagram, radio and television and Anne and Julian talk about their route into Larkin, their favourite poems, cancel culture, Hull University, Beatrix Potter, Larkin’s legacy and much more.

Wider topics and references: Rachel Cusk, Morrissey, Rap Boy, Desert Island Discs, Dublin, James Joyce, Richard Murfield, Monica Jones, Beatrix Potter, The Smiths, The Beatles A Hard Day Night, Bernadine Evaristo.

Larkin poems discussed: No Road, Dublinesque, Going Going, Broadcast, Church Going, This Be The Verse, At Grass.

Lyn and Rachael look back on the events of 2020 in the PLS world. This episode also includes contributions from Professor Graham Chesters (PLS Chair), novelist Chris Walsh, PLS trustee Julian Wild, Philip Pullen (Chair of Larkin100), PLS members Sally Button and James Tarry, Leigh Bird and Esther Johnson from Ships In The Sky, Hull.

Poems discussed: Self’s the Man, Vers De Societe, Home Is So Sad, The Mower.

Topics discussed: PLS online events, Coventry City of Culture, Larkin100, Larkin embroidery, cricket, John Betjeman, Larkin on YouTube, About Larkin, merchandise, the Larkin quiz, lockdown.

Professor Graham Chesters, the new Chair of the Philip Larkin Society, joins us to talk about how came to Hull University, inadvertently following the footsteps of Larkin. Graham also tells us about his relationship with Philip Larkin both as a university colleague and a neighbour in Hull and some of his more disconcerting and memorable encounters with Larkin. Graham talks about his involvement with the Philip Larkin Society and the impact of Covid on the Society. Graham also talks to us about the Larkin poem Absences. A couple of little technology gremlins sneaked in here, so apologies for the occasional dip in sound quality. 

Contemporaries of Larkin mentioned: Garnet Rees (Chair of Modern French Literature at Hull), Vernon Watkins (Welsh poet), Brynmor Jones (Vice Chancellor of Hull University), George Orwell, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, Eddie Dawes (founding Chairman of the PLS), Maeve Brennan (Larkin’s sub-librarian and lover), Monica Jones (Larkin’s partner), Betty Mackereth (Larkin’s secretary), Carole Collinson (PLS Membership Secretary), James Booth, biographer of Larkin, Life, Art and Love (2014). 

Other texts: Larkin: A Writer’s Life by Andrew Motion (1993), The Sight of Death by TJ Clarke (2006). 

French literature: Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire (1857), Rimbaud, Mallarme, Roland Barthes. 

Larkin poems discussed: As Bad as A Mile, Absences, I Remember, I Remember. 

Our guest on this episode is David Quantick - journalist, essayist, writer of television shows Veep and The Thick Of It, horror novel All My Colours (2019, Titan Books), soon-to-be released novel Night Train (2020, Titan Books) and much, much more!

A few months ago, David Quantick tweeted about his enjoyment of Trouble At Willow Gables and other Brunette Coleman works by Philip Larkin. In this episode he joins us to talk about Brunette Coleman and in particular her essay What Are We Writing For? (1943), poem Femmes Damnes and the wider ‘schoolgirl’ writing of Philip Larkin.

More Larkin stuff discussed: Jill, A Girl in Winter, The Whitsun Weddings, Afternoons, An Arundel

Tomb, Mr Bleaney, A School in August, Aubade.

Other writers, books and shows: George Orwell Boys Weeklies (1940) (Available here: https://orwell.ru/library/essays/boys/english/e_boys ), Harry Potter, Mallory Towers, the James Bond books of Ian Fleming and Martin Amis, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Frank Richards, Downton Abbey, Call the Midwife, Orange is the New Black.

This episode has four contributors, all of whom have very different connections to Philip Larkin. 

Wes Finch from The Mechanicals Band performs his beautiful new setting of The Trees by Philip Larkin. 

Sophie Lewis, Folio Society editor, discusses the remarkable new limited edition of Philip Larkin’s Collected Poems, which is the first to combine both Larkin’s poems and photographs, with the introduction and image selection by Andrew Motion. https://www.foliosociety.com/uk/philip-larkin-collected-poems.html 

Esther Johnson, Professor of Film and Media at Sheffield Hallam University, talks to us about the new fundraising Ships In The Sky project and the creation of a wonderful reading of The North Ship by Philip Larkin. https://shipsinthesky.weebly.com/ 

Chris Sewart has moved from Leicester to Beverley (connections, connections!) and joined the PLS after winning the Larkin Prize of the East Riding Ways With Words Poetry Competition at the end of January with his poem, Fencing Project-1975, which was subsequently published in About Larkin. Here he reads his poetry and reflects on his deepening interest in the world of Larkin. 

https://festivalofwords.co.uk/poetry-comp/ 

Larkin poems discussed: Sunny Prestatyn, The North Ship, This Be The Verse, The Winter Palace, The Mower, Talking In Bed. 

Also discussed: Short and Sweet 101 Very Short Poems ed by Simon Armitage (Faber&Faber). 

Lyn and Rachael have been friends for over twenty years. In this episode, they discuss their shared enthusiasm for all things Larkin. 

Larkin poems referred to: Afternoons, Dockery and Son, The Mower, Sunny Prestatyn, The Large Cool Store, A Study of Reading Habits, Toads, Toads Revisited, As Bad as A Mile, Vers De Societe, Home is So Sad, At Grass, The Old Fools, Solar, Church Going, For Sidney Bechet, Reference Back, Wild Oats, Take One Home For the Kiddies. 

Prose: Jill and A Girl In Winter by Philip Larkin. 

Other Larkinalia:  Trouble at Willow Gables, Selected Letters of Philip Larkin ed. Anthony Thwaite, The Philip Larkin I Knew by Maeve Brennan, Treat It Gentle by Sidney Bechet, The Sunday Sessions. 

Other bits and bobs: And When Did You Last See Your Father? by Blake Morrison, Modern Life is Rubbish (LP) by Blur, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Waste Land by TS Eliot. 

This ‘Larkin in Lockdown’ episode was recorded specially to look at Larkin in the context of Covid-19 and we would like to send out thoughts out to all our supporters and listeners at this difficult time. Lyn and Kyra look at Larkin’s poems of social isolation as well as his poetry about spring and nature. We read from and discuss a range of Larkin’s poems, including Best Society, Here, High Windows, Going, Going, The Whitsun Weddings, Coming and The Trees. We also surprise ourselves with current mole behaviour, recommend a fellow literary podcast, and Lyn reveals what she is going to do first when social distancing comes to an end. 

In the second part of our conversation with Kieron Winn, we discuss Faith Healing and ‘coinage’ of all different kinds in Larkin, This Be The Verse, Broadcast, Tom Stoppard and Ian McEwan’s comments on Larkin, Herbert Read’s essay ‘What is a Poem?’, the glacial speed of poetry writing, Wordsworth, Hardy, TS Eliot, and the poetry of grief. Kieron also reads two more poems from The Mortal Man; The Duplicator and Cornwall.

In this episode we speak to Philip Larkin Society trustee, Philip Pullen, a writer and researcher who is also the society's Media and Publicity Officer and chair of the Larkin 100 celebrations, being planned by the society for 2022. 

He talks to us about the plans for Larkin 100 and his extensive research into Larkin's life, which has uncovered many fascinating stories about the poet and his family. 

In this third and final part of our in-depth conversation with James Booth, he tells us about his own books on the poet, Larkin's early schoolgirl poems and astonishing use of language. If you haven't heard parts one and two, be sure to give them a listen.

James Booth is the Philip Larkin Society's Literary Adviser & Co-Editor of About Larkin, the society's journal. He has published two books on Philip Larkin: Philip Larkin: Writer (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991) and Philip Larkin: The Poet’s Plight (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). He has also edited Larkin’s early girls’-school stories and poems as Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions (Faber, 2002), and a volume of critical essays, New Larkins for Old (Macmillan, 2000), arising from the first Hull International Conference on the Work of Philip Larkin mounted by the Society in 1997. He has recently retired from the Department of English at the University of Hull. His new biography of Larkin: Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love was published in August 2014.

Songwriter and musician Wes Finch from The Mechanicals Band joins us to discuss Larkin and to tell us about ‘THE RIGHTEOUS JAZZ’ – a new Larkin-inspired musical and theatre production.

This is the podcast for anyone who is interested in Philip Larkin. We will bring you new insights into Larkin's life and writing by talking to people with fascinating stories to tell and unusual connections to the great poet himself.

In this second part of our conversation with James Booth, he talks about Larkin's development as a writer, takes a closer look at 'The Old Fools' and reflects on Larkin's long-term partner, Monica Jones.

James Booth is the Philip Larkin Society's Literary Adviser & Co-Editor of About Larkin, the society's journal. He has published two books on Philip Larkin: Philip Larkin: Writer (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991) and Philip Larkin: The Poet’s Plight (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). He has also edited Larkin’s early girls’-school stories and poems as Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions (Faber, 2002), and a volume of critical essays, New Larkins for Old (Macmillan, 2000), arising from the first Hull International Conference on the Work of Philip Larkin mounted by the Society in 1997. He has recently retired from the Department of English at the University of Hull. His new biography of Larkin: Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love was published in August 2014. 

James Booth is the Philip Larkin Society's Literary Adviser & Co-Editor of About Larkin, the society's journal. He has published two books on Philip Larkin: Philip Larkin: Writer (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991) and Philip Larkin: The Poet’s Plight (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). He has also edited Larkin’s early girls’-school stories and poems as Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions (Faber, 2002), and a volume of critical essays, New Larkins for Old (Macmillan, 2000), arising from the first Hull International Conference on the Work of Philip Larkin mounted by the Society in 1997. He has recently retired from the Department of English at the University of Hull. His new biography of Larkin: Philip Larkin: Life, Art and Love was published in August 2014. In the first part of our conversation with James, he tells us about how he became an expert on Larkin including his time as lecturer of the University of Hull. 

In our first full episode, we talk to Edwin (Eddie) Dawes, chairman of the Philip Larkin Society and former Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Hull. Eddie was Chairman of the Library Committee for a record period of eleven years, during which time he worked closely with Philip Larkin. He is now Professor Emeritus. As a friend and colleague of Philip Larkin, he was honoured to accept the invitation to chair the Larkin Society on its foundation in 1995. Eddie shares his memories of working with Philip Larkin and their friendship, the role of the Society and a guest lecture from Grayson Perry in 2017. 

In this introductory episode, we talk to Kyra Piperides Jaques about her involvement in the Philip Larkin Society and look ahead to what you can expect to hear throughout the series. Larkin biographer James Booth (and future guest) on The Building, the poem discussed by Kyra;

Yes, the Building has got to be the new HRI on Anlaby Road. The description clinches it surely - a lucent honeycomb (I seem to remember, earlier, it was painted yellow, not blue as now), a clean-sliced cliff, with the slums still (then) huddled around it. This is the hospital Larkin attended in January 1972 with a crick in his neck (opened by the Queen in June 1967.)

Our first full episode will be available on 2nd December 2019. Subscribe to this podcast for free via your favourite podcast app.