‘I Remember, I Remember’, 1955–85

Abstract

When Miss Agnes Cuming, the retiring University Librarian, introduced us to her replacement, Philip Larkin, in March 1955, we wondered how this tall, spare, diffident young man would get on with us and we with him. By contrast, his dress was rather flamboyant: corduroy trousers, bright pink shirt and navy and white spotted bow tie. Later we were even more taken aback by the patterned ties with colourful fruit and flower designs which he alternated with the bow ties in those days, and his penchant for brightly coloured socks. Moreover, his intellectual appearance and pronounced stammer distanced him from us. We knew little about him except that he had come from Queen’s University, Belfast, where he had been a sub-librarian, was thirty-two years old and unmarried. We knew nothing about his poetic aspirations and even the appearance of The Less Deceived, seven months after his arrival, caused no more than a faint ripple in our totally ordinary lives which were dominated by our boy friends, engagements and wedding plans, or their failure to come to fruition.

I should like to thank David K. Bassett, Charles F. Brook, Brian Dyson, Frances Curnock-Newton, Anthony Thwaite and John White for their valuable comments.