Chapter and verse on unsung hero of poetry

CONGRATULATIONS all round must go to rising star Simon Armitage who becomes the nation’s 21st Poet Laureate. As a Yorkshireman, he follows Ted Hughes to the title he so richly deserves.

What a pity that the wonderful Yorkshireman and poet – although best known for his classic books on Yorkshire’s landscapes – Alfred J Brown, born in Bradford in 1894, lived in an era when only the nation’s most notable such as Lord Tennyson and William Wordsworth were not surprisingly given the honour of Poet Laureate. Yet if AJ, as he was known, had been alive today, I feel sure he would have been recognised as one of Yorkshire’s greatest writers and poets.

AJ’s collections of poems and songs, first published in 1949, are a collection of his greatest works which I recommend to fellow readers of The Yorkshire Post, which contains perhaps one of his finest called Dales in Paradise that begins “There must be dales in Paradise which you and I will find”. AJ’s gravestone, where he is buried with his French wife Marie-Eugenie in St John’s Church, Sleights, near Whitby, is well worth a visit. A moorland bard like no other, but without the honour now granted to Simon Armitage.