A Personal Memoir

Abstract

I first met Philip Larkin about 1946. He used to come up for weekends to Oxford to see his friends: having done all his degrees while they were in the army, and so on, he was the only one with a proper job at the time. His friends were mostly St John’s undergraduates or former schoolfriends from Coventry, such as Graham Parkes, ‘Miud’ Richards, Christopher Tosswill and Kingsley Amis. These were the ones he saw most and we used to go around a lot together. It was always a highlight when Philip arrived for a few days. We would usually eat in the British Restaurant, go to each other’s digs or college rooms, play jazz records and go to pubs. I was so besotted by Kingsley that it was hard for me to take too much notice of anyone else, but as things calmed down a bit after Kingsley and I were married, we all became very good friends.