Ray Ward on Philip Larkin and Me

Ray Ward gave a talk on his acquaintance with the poet Philip Larkin, which (though Ray is not, he said, “a literary type”), sparked an interest in matters Larkinesque.

They had a profession in common: Larkin was the Librarian of the University of Hull where Ray was a student of Politics in 1974-7, while Ray, before going there, had worked for 10 years in the public library service in his home city of Sheffield and become a chartered librarian.

Ray outlined Larkin’s life, from birth in Coventry in 1922, school, St John’s College, Oxford, and library posts before he came to Hull where he stayed until his death in 1985.