Authors: James Booth
20.
Interview with
Paris Review
,
RW
, p. 65.
21.
RW
, pp. 62, 68.
22.
Ibid., p. 60.
23.
Ibid., pp. 69, 58.
24.
Jane Thomas, Philip Larkin Society website: ‘Poem of the Month’, June 2011 (‘Love’): http://www.philiplarkin.com/histpom/proposer/thomas_j.htm (accessed 1 September 2012).
25.
Motion, p. 497.
26.
Douglas Dunn (ed.),
A Rumoured City: New Poets from Hull
(Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1982), p. 9.
27.
Hartley, p. 202.
28.
Motion, p. 496.
29.
Ibid., p. 492.
30.
To Thwaite, 17 May 1982.
SL
, p. 671.
31.
6 June 1982. SL, p. 674.
32.
To Virginia Peace.
SL
,
p. 663. Whalen later wrote
Philip Larkin and English Poetry
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990).
33.
Michael Hamburger,
Philip Larkin
(London: Enitharmon Press, 2002), pp. 35–6.
34.
Motion, p. 497. Janet Brennan, ‘Philip Larkin and Margaret Thatcher’.
AL
35 (April 2013), p. 11..
35.
LM
, pp. 442–3.
36.
Motion, p. 498.
37.
Ibid., p. 499.
38.
Betty Mackereth, interview with the author, 20 June 2011.
39.
DPL(2)/2/15.
40.
RW
, p. 11; to Colin Gunner, 2 August 1983,
SL
, p. 700.
41.
In a letter to Daniel Weissbort of 25 November 1983, Ted Hughes paid rueful tribute to the way the ‘spermicide’ of Larkin’s authority, and the ‘subtle efficiency’ of his ‘sort of social one-upmanship’, made other kinds of poetry seem ‘a genetic mistake, unfit for [. . .] decent society’. ‘Some of the pieces are awfully good & persuasive [. . .] He’s a sour old cuss & the whole book’s outrageous propaganda for his own tastes & limitations & prejudices, but perfectly timed – philistinism has been browbeaten too long!’ Ted Hughes,
Letters of Ted Hughes
, ed. Christopher Reid (London: Faber & Faber, 2007), pp. 476–7.
42.
‘Meeting Philip Larkin’,
FR
, pp. 112 and 116.
43.
2 April 1984.
LM
, p. 444.
44.
Jane Bottomley, personal communication, 27 July 2011.
45.
Motion, pp. 508, 507.
46.
SL
, p. 713.
47.
Judy Egerton, interview with the author, 17 December 2010.
48.
Hartley, p. 178.
49.
Jane Bottomley, personal communication, 27 July 2011.
50.
Judy Egerton, interview with the author, 17 December 2010.
51.
16 September 1984.
SL
,
p. 720.
52.
Motion, p. 510.
53.
27 December 1984. Motion, p. 511.
54.
In 1999 the then Dean of Westminster, Wesley Carr, responded to the Larkin Society’s representations with reservations about Larkin’s religious views, and the opinion that a poet should not be considered until at least twenty years after his or her death. The current Dean, John Hall, clearly adopted a different policy in relation to Hughes.
55.
DPL/X4/5/5.
56.
Motion, p. 513.
57.
Brennan, p. 91.
58.
Jean Hartley believed that it was Monica. Personal communication, 2011.
59.
Brennan, p. 91.
60.
Betty Mackereth, interview with the author, 20 June 2011.
61.
Hartley, p. 207.
62.
Jean Hartley, ‘Larkin, Love and Sex’,
AL
30 (October 2010), pp. 6–8, at p. 8.
63.
Brennan, p. 91.
64.
Thomas McAlindon, personal communication, 23 October 2011.
65.
Betty Mackereth, interview with the author, 20 June 2011.
66.
SL
,
p. 743.
67.
Motion, p. 519.
68.
Personal recollection of the author.
69.
Professor Dawes is now Chairman of the Philip Larkin Society.
70.
Hughes,
Letters of Ted Hughes
, pp. 502–3.
71.
Motion, p. 520.
72.
Ibid., p. 521.
Postscript: Petals and Graves
1.
Martin Amis, Introduction to
Philip Larkin: Poems
(London: Faber & Faber, 2011), p. xix.
2.
13 September 1954.
LM
, p. 116.
3.
FR
, p. 60.
4.
DPL/4/1/1–DPL/4/1/13.
5.
Betty Mackereth, interview with the author, 4 August 2003.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Motion, p. xvi.
8.
Collected Poems
, p. xxii.
9.
Motion, pp. 519–20.
10.
Ibid., p. 307.
11.
Maeve wrote: ‘James Booth undertook the task of editing my text and skilfully welded its different elements into a harmonious whole’ (p. xii). My contribution was to encourage her to write at greater length and more candidly than she had originally intended. I helped her to distribute the material into chapters, provided the chapter headings and suggested the title. I also encouraged her to add the chapter ‘Religion’. Otherwise I scrupulously avoided any attempt to influence the content or tone of her book.
12.
James Booth, ‘“Snooker” at the Seaside: The Birthday Walk in Scarborough’,
AL
16 (October 2003), pp. 29–30.
13.
James Booth, ‘Glimpses’ (interview with Monica Jones),
AL
12 (October 2001), p. 22.
14.
Motion, pp. 310–11.
15.
Booth, ‘Glimpses’, pp. 23–4.