Hotel venue for Larkin Trail launch

Hull Royal Hotel will be used as the venue for the launch of the trail.

“Larkin with Toads”, which saw 40 giant glass fibre toads installed across Hull last summer as part of a series of events to mark the 25th anniversary of his death, was a huge success.

The walk takes in City Hall, where he indulged his passion for jazz, visits Marks & Spencer on Whitefriargate where he encountered “cheap clothes/Set out in simple sizes plainly”, and takes in the evocatively named Land of Green Ginger, his home on Pearson Park and of course Hull University, and the Brynmor Jones Library where Larkin worked for 30 years.

United Creatives, a design agency from Manchester, came up with the Victorian-inspired signs, which are being painted or fixed on buildings.

The Larkin Trail website www.thelarkintrail.co.uk will also be launched next month and will enable visitors to virtually explore the trail. The site hosts Larkin reading his own poems, photographs, and artwork and reminiscences created as part of the Larkin25 commemorations.