Poet to deliver final lines of city celebration honouring Larkin

The talk, Philip Larkin and the end of the line, will be delivered by poet Carol Rumens and will bring the curtain down on Larkin 25, a series of events commemorating the 25th anniversary of Larkin’s death.

It will allow organisers to reflect on a memorable and varied programme that captivated residents, brought new visitors to Hull, and increased awareness and understanding of the poet in his adopted city.

As well as unveiling a 7ft bronze statue of Larkin on Paragon Station – whose creator, sculptor Martin Jennings, imagined is looking down the line to a statue of Larkin’s friend and fellow poet Sir John Betjeman in St Pancras Station, London – the Larkin 25 programme also delivered giant plastic toads, a Larkin trail, and a series of grant awards for arts projects.

The 40 fibreglass toads were installed across the city last year then auctioned off to fund the grants, while the trail guides visitors around some of Larkin’s favourite haunts.

The toads, which generated about £500,000 for the local economy, won the “remarkable experience” category in the Remarkable East Yorkshire Tourism Awards, and have been shortlisted for the White Rose tourism awards next week.

Professor Graham Chesters, chairman of Larkin 25, said he was delighted with what the programme had achieved and how it had been received.

He said: “When we started we had very high expectations, probably foolishly high expectations, but I think we have probably exceeded them all.

“We had so much enthusiasm coming from different parts of the city, the college, Hull Truck, the council, the university and the schools sector.

“The fact that it lasted 25 weeks sounded ambitious, but in fact it kept its pace going and its momentum, and importantly, there’s a legacy with the statue, the trail and the Larkin awards, and Larkin is a lot better known in the city than he was before, which was one of the key aims of the whole thing.”

Prof Chesters said he felt it had also given residents a greater appreciation of the man and the poet – and altered perceptions of the writer’s relationship with the city.

He said: “He had quite a complex and difficult personality, not immediately likeable, and that was one of the reasons we chose toads; not just because of the poem, to make people look at them again. They have a bad press and Larkin sometimes had a bad press.

“But the fact that he was so versatile, he was known for his poetry but a lot of Larkin’s creativity surrounded his love of jazz and his photography – the breadth of his interests I think surprised a lot of people, and of course he wrote some fantastic poems inspired by Hull and about Hull.

“He said Hull was dump but he said that when he first came in 1955 when Hull was still rebuilding after the Second World War and he said it in a private letter.

“The things he said about the city publicly, in writing, the fact that its got ‘sudden elegancies’, that it lets you write and its got a different resonance; he just loved the place.

“You don’t stay in a place for over 30 years..he had chances to leave, he was very distinguished librarian. I think that was a bit of a surprise to people; that he wrote so positively about the city.”

Ms Rumens, who will be introduced by Professor James Booth, will discuss the musicality of Larkin’s poems in the university’s annual English lecture.

The event is open to the public, free to attend and will be given in Middleton Hall from 6pm.