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© Steve Ely 2015 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in , company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the , Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–1–137–49934–9 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ely, Steve. Ted Hughes’s South : made in / Steve Ely. pages; cm ISBN 978–1–137–49934–9 (hardcover) 1. Hughes, Ted, 1930–1998. 2. Poets, English—20th century—Biography. I. Title. PR6058.U37Z665 2015 821'.914—dc23 [B] 2015012345

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Contents

Acknowledgements viii Note on Abbreviations xi

Introduction 1 1 Mytholmroyd 8 2 Mexborough 32 3 Old Denaby 59 4 Crookhill 76 5 Mexborough Grammar School 109 6 The Poems 147 7 Made in Mexborough 182

Notes 195 Bibliography 214 Index 221

vii

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Introduction

On the afternoon of Saturday, 22 October 2011, I was in Mytholmroyd, listening to Keith Sagar give a talk as part of the Trust’s annual Ted Hughes Festival – and trying to suppress a growing sense of frustration. My frustration had nothing to do with Keith’s presen- tation, which was typically engaging and enlightening. Nor had it been provoked by any of the other lectures and performances I had attended, which had been similarly worthwhile. My issue was with the central premise of the festival itself. Hundreds of people had gath- ered in Mytholmroyd to celebrate the life and work of Ted Hughes, who had been appropriated by the town and the Elmet Trust as ‘Mytholmroyd’s Poet Laureate’1 and seemingly universally accepted as such by the wider literary world. Yet, as anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of his life knows, Hughes spent only his first eight years in Mytholmroyd, leaving the town with his family in 1938 and subsequently returning (to the town itself and to the wider Upper Calder Valley area) for only relatively brief visits and sojourns.2 Although it is undeniable that Hughes’s early years in Mytholmroyd were hugely significant to his development, there is another Yorkshire town with a greater claim to be regarded as the place that formed him as a poet. When the Hughes family left Mytholmroyd in 1938, they relo- cated to Mexborough, 40 miles to the south in the West Riding’s coal and steel belt, roughly equidistant between the larger centres of , and . Ted Hughes spent the next 13 years in Mexborough, during which many of the distinctive inter- ests and attitudes that would characterize his maturity emerged and

1

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2 Ted Hughes’s coalesced. It was in Mexborough that his already established love of the countryside and animals evolved through activities such as shooting and trapping into a more observational approach in which the first stirrings of an ecological conscience can be seen. It was in Mexborough that Hughes’s lifelong obsession with fishing, which would so influence his life and work, really began. At Mexborough Grammar School, he resolved to become a poet and received a first- class education that exposed him to the artistic and intellectual influences – William Shakespeare, Ludwig van Beethoven, Gerard Manley Hopkins, D.H. Lawrence, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Henry Williamson, the Bible, folklore and mythology, to name but a few – that were to inform his mature work. At Mexborough, Hughes took the first steps to becoming a ‘man of letters’, not only writing his first poems, but publishing reviews, short stories and skits in the school magazine, The Don & Dearne (which he also sub-edited), writing, cast- ing and directing dramatic revues, and acting in plays. His winning of an Open Exhibition to Pembroke College, Cambridge, which deci- sively set him on course for the rest of his life, was in no small way enabled by the support provided by his charismatic English teacher, John Fisher. In Mexborough, Hughes had his first girlfriends, fell in love for the first time and developed precocious and distinctive attitudes to male–female relationships that he would elaborate and refine in his mature work. Finally, at this time he evolved the highly individualistic artistic temperament and powerfully charismatic per- sonality that came to be associated with him in later life, which, for want of a better term, might be called his ‘poetic persona’. There can be no doubt that Ted Hughes evolved into the poet of his subsequent fame during his Mexborough period. Sitting in that Mytholmroyd lecture room, my frustration broke into audibility in an involuntary, and thankfully sotto voce, outburst: ‘We’re in the wrong place!’ My breach of decorum resulted in a few quiz- zical looks from the turned heads in the seats immediately adjacent, but I am pleased to report that Keith’s talk was otherwise undisturbed by my contribution. Nevertheless, that moment was the genesis of this book. Prior to the 2011 Elmet Trust festival, I had already made some rather desultory researches into Hughes’s Mexborough period, provoked by the fact that published biographical and critical materi- als carried so frustratingly little information about it. In the process of making these initial enquiries, I found that the lacuna in critical

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Introduction 3 and biographical work about his South Yorkshire period was reflected in the almost total amnesia about Hughes in Mexborough itself. The town has no bronze statue of the poet, no Ted Hughes Trail, no Ted Hughes Festival, no Ted Hughes Theatre, no information boards or leaflets, no literary, civic or community groups committed to cel- ebrating, promoting and commemorating Hughes’s life and work, no colony of artists and writers drawn to the area by its association with Hughes – most of which, of course, are evident in Mytholmroyd and the surrounding area. Granted, the library in the newly rebuilt Mexborough School is named for Hughes (and was formally opened by his wife, Carol, in 2009) and obviously many individuals in the area are aware of his former residence in the town. However, this only throws into sharper relief the absence for over half a century of any wider recognition of the fact that one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century lived in Mexborough for the most formative years of his life. On 23 April 2013, a blue plaque commemorating his residence there was fixed to the wall of the former Hughes family home at 75 Main Street. However, it was the local publicity gener- ated by my research for this book that had spurred a quartet of South Yorkshiremen – poet Jack Brown, sculptor Graham Ibbeson, artist Ashley Jackson and the then Mayor of Doncaster, Peter Davies – to erect the commemoration. None of the quartet is from Mexborough. The librarian of Mexborough School, Carol Kay, has struggled in vain to generate interest in Hughes beyond the school. Attempts by local societies to commemorate the poet have fizzled out. At Manor Farm (now a pub and restaurant), once the heart of Hughes’s Old Denaby stamping grounds and a landscape at least as important to his development as Mytholmroyd’s high moorland or the ‘happy valley’ of Crimsworth Dene, I found that neither the bar manager, her staff nor any of the patrons had any idea that Ted Hughes had an association with the building in which we were all standing – or, sadly, had any idea who on earth ‘Ted Hughes’ was. Mr Stanley, the farmer who gave me permission to roam over the fields and copses of the attached farmland, seemed similarly unaware of Hughes’s identity and existence. Parallel to this, scholars and academics seem to have shown little sustained interest in Hughes’s Mexborough period. Elaine Feinstein’s Ted Hughes: The Life of a Poet is a notable exception. Feinstein has 10 pages3 covering 1938–51, including some original research, and she

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4 Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire is clearly aware of the importance of the period to Hughes’s devel- opment. Scholar Terry Gifford ran a literary tour of Hughes-related Mexborough and South Yorkshire sites as part of the Off the Shelf festival in 1997, and along with his fellow academics Keith Sagar,4 Neil Roberts,5 Diane Middlebrook6 and Paul Bentley7 has made sensitive and perceptive comments about aspects of Hughes’s South Yorkshire experience.8 However, to my knowledge, no scholar has ever set out to research Hughes’s Mexborough period systematically. Indeed, one figure from the publishing world with whom I shared my project gave the impression that he was unaware that Mytholmroyd and Mexborough were different places – two barbarous northern place names beginning with ‘M’ seem to have short-circuited his powers of discrimination. Needless to say, the conflated Yorkshire ‘M-place’ of his confusion was one of moors, mills and the river Calder, not copses, coal mines and the rivers Don and Dearne. Even Gerald Hughes’s very engaging 2012 memoir, Ted & I, contained little specific new information about his brother’s South Yorkshire period (despite containing a chapter entitled ‘Mexborough’, 65–80). As the poet Ian Parks has said, it is as though Hughes’s South Yorkshire period has been ‘airbrushed from his biography’.9 At the 2011 Elmet Trust festival, I resolved to brush it back in. This book is the fruit of that resolution. Putting aside my initial ‘frustration’, which briefly threatened a polarized, ‘Mexborough versus Mytholmroyd’ polemic (an approach that some of my more partisan South Yorkshire sources, nursing a sense of grievance about the critical neglect of the importance of Mexborough to Hughes, are still disappointed I did not adopt), I have attempted to demonstrate Mexborough’s seminal influence on Hughes while fully acknowledg- ing the importance of his natal Mytholmroyd, seeing the respective influences of the two towns in shaping his development as comple- mentary and, in many respects, in clear continuity. Broadly, I have concluded that although Hughes’s deep family roots and memorable early childhood experiences in the Mytholmroyd area definitively gripped his imagination, shaped his temperament and, crucially, secured his identification, it was the experiences he had and the influ- ences to which he was exposed while living in Mexborough that formed him as a poet. The book is organized topographically, in that I discuss Hughes’s formation and development under chapter headings largely related

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Introduction 5 to places. The first chapter establishes a baseline for my arguments by identifying and characterizing the contribution of Mytholmroyd and the Upper Calder Valley to Hughes’s development, focusing in particular on the close-knit family and social world in which Hughes was brought up, his family’s deep roots in the area, the influence of landscape and the key relationship with his older brother Gerald. Chapter 2 describes the circumstances surrounding the Hughes family’s move to South Yorkshire, paints a contextual picture of Mexborough during the time of their residence in the town and outlines the initial reactions of the various members of the family to their new home, before concluding with some observations about the importance of their class and social status. Chapter 3 describes and evaluates the importance of Hughes’s activities at Old Denaby and Manor Farm in shaping his attitudes to animals, nature and the countryside, and evaluates the impact on Ted Hughes of Gerald’s eventual departure from the area. Chapter 4 outlines the crucial importance of Crookhill Park and the Wholey family to Hughes’s for- mation, expounding in particular Crookhill’s role in developing his predilection to experience the countryside in private and essentially proprietorial ways, his attitudes to nature and animals, the origin of his obsession with fishing and the key relationships that Hughes formed there. Chapter 5 describes the role of Mexborough Grammar School in Hughes’s intellectual, artistic and poetic development, and gives evidence of his emergence as a poet. Chapter 6 comprises a survey of Hughes’s literary output during his Mexborough period, and presents an inventory and brief analysis of those mature works that demonstrate a clear South Yorkshire link, showing the ongoing importance of South Yorkshire in and to Hughes’s work. The final chapter attempts to account for the effacement of Mexborough from Hughes’s biography and will summarize the evidence that leads to the conclusion that Hughes was ‘made in Mexborough’. Within this topographical structure, various arguments will be advanced and themes discussed, including:

• The influence of Ted’s brother Gerald on his attitudes to animals and nature and how that interest developed from shooting and trapping to ecological awareness. • How Hughes’s characteristic mythopoeic imagination developed during this period, informing and enriching his all-important

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6 Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire

inner life and creating the deep structure of meaning and signifi- cance that ultimately underpinned all his poetry. • The social status of the Hughes family in Mexborough, and how this influenced and shaped Hughes’s development. • How Hughes’s close and supportive family consistently provided the encouragement, contacts and resources that enabled him to succeed at school, secure an Open Exhibition to Pembroke College and pursue his ambition to become a poet. • How the environment of Mexborough Grammar School and the influence of Hughes’s talented and charismatic English teachers, Pauline Mayne and John Fisher, provided the inspiration and means for him to develop his literary and intellectual tastes and become a poet and literary figure.

I am not an academic, and although the hypotheses, evaluations and conclusions I advance in this book are rooted in research and appropriately referenced, I have sought to avoid a detached, clinical tone. My research into Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire was driven by a zeal to bring this period of his life to a wider audience and to reas- sert the importance of his Mexborough period to his development (and by a similar zeal to restore Ted Hughes to the consciousness of Mexborough). I sincerely hope that the commitment that char- acterized my quest is discernible in the text. For me, Ted Hughes is simply one of the greatest poets of the English language. I have been an enthusiast for his work since 1979, when I first encountered his poetry on the O level English Literature syllabus. Hughes provided my entrée into poetry and for the next several years I devoured as much of his writing as I could. Informed by Keith Sagar’s The Art of Ted Hughes and, later, Terry Gifford and Neil Robert’s Ted Hughes: A Critical Study (both of which I had on more or less permanent loan from my local library), my wider poetic reading became dominated not only by Hughes, but by those poets who were important to him (Shakespeare, William Blake, Yeats, Hopkins, Eliot, Lawrence, Vasco Popa, Zbigniew Herbert, Janos Pilinsky) or otherwise associated with him (Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, Seamus Heaney, John Crowe Ransom). The anthropological, mythological and folkloric works that so influenced Hughes’s oeuvre – Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Paul Radin’s The Trickster, Mircea Eliade’s Shamanism, George Ewart Evans’s The Pattern under the Plough, J.G. Frazer’s The

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Introduction 7

Golden Bough and, of course, Robert Graves’s The White Goddess – all became grist to my mill. The impact that Hughes’s poetry had on me was so powerful that there was a time in my teens when, had I been asked to compile an anthology of the 100 greatest poems in the English language, over half of my choices would have been by Hughes, with most of the remainder being provided by the other poets just listed. Although my poetic tastes have broadened consider- ably since then, were I to compile that hypothetical anthology today, my selections from Hughes would still be well into double figures. My attachment to Hughes is intensified by a sense of affinity. Like Hughes, I am a Yorkshire poet from a coalfield background, with a his- tory of literary precocity at school and a love of animals and the coun- tryside. Hughes’s Mexborough is only 10 miles distant from South Kirkby, the mining town in which I was brought up, although I had never actually visited Mexborough until I began my first, tentative researches for this book. Hughes has been an important figure in my life, and this, combined with my partisan intentions of writing South Yorkshire back into his biography, means that while Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire is a scholarly book, it is not a dispassionate one. Finally, two notes: first, it is important to remark that until the local government reorganization of 1974, ‘South Yorkshire’ as a county did not exist. Mexborough, like Mytholmroyd, was part of the historical . Technically, Mexborough was located in ‘the southern West Riding’ – an accurate geographi- cal description, but a clumsy phrase and an almost oxymoronic identifier – which is why I have opted for the more efficient, but anachronistic, ‘South Yorkshire’ in the title of the book. Secondly, I use the term ‘Mexborough’ in two ways: first to describe the town itself, and second as a shorthand descriptor of the wider area of ‘Ted Hughes’s South Yorkshire’, including Crookhill, Conisborough, Denaby Main, Old Denaby, Swinton and the surrounding villages and hamlets. The context makes clear which usage is intended.

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Index

Acts of the Apostles, 175 Blackpool, 179 Adwick Road, 38, 110 Blake, William, 6, 165, 171 Aeschi-bei-Speitz, 117, 141 Blakemore, Harold, 110, 137–8, Aire, river, 37 157–8 Alaska, 190 Blomfield, Lawrence Woodyeare, 77 Albert Street, 19 Boddy, Michael, 139, 185 Alliston, Susan, 139 Bolton-on-Dearne, 35 Alphington, 60, 133 Bookchin, Murray, 191 Amateur Athletics Association, 136 Boston, 184 Ambrosius Aurelianus, 35 Boyanowsky, Ehor, 24, 104, 106, 139 Amis, Kingsley, 147–9 Boy Scouts, 26 Anderson, Benedict, 31 Boys’ Brigade, 26 Andrew, Dorothy, 132 Bradley, John (jnr), 46 Ardrey, Robert, 116, 124, 141, 154 Bradley, John (snr), 46 Arnold, Matthew, 169 Braithwell, 77 Arvon Foundation, 187, 193 Brearley, Giles, 43, 53, 69, 71 Colliery, 77 Broadhead, Noah, 109 Aspinall Street, 1, 8, 19, 30, 163, Brown, Jack, 3, 42, 139, 174, 186, 190 182, 192 Bruno, Giordano, 155–6 astrology, 168 Bujon, Anne-Lorraine, 60–1, 66, 123 Bullcroft Colliery, 77–8 Badsworth Hunt, The, 79 Burnley, 9 Baker, Kenneth, 55 Butcher, Keith, 79 Banksfield, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, Buxton, Kenneth, 48, 111, 135 30, 58, 182, 187 Byatt, A.S., 109 Barker, George, 147 Barnburgh, 35, 174, 193 Calderdale, 36 Barnes, Stanley, 94–7, 164, 171 Calder, river, 23 Barnet, 60–1, 177 Calder Valley, Upper Calder Valley Barnsley, 39, 46, 174, 186 see Mytholomroyd ‘Batter my heart, three-personed Cambridge, 140, 150, 184, 193 god’, 169 Cambridge University, 96, 121, 129, Beaux Stratagem, The, 127 145, 172, 187 Beckett, Samuel, 161 Campbell, Joseph, 6 Bedford, 91, 93, 96 Camps, W.A., 118, 120 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 2, 129, 150 Capstick, Tony, 41 Bentley, Paul, 4 Castle Hill, 35 Bible, The, 2, 129, 151 Chambers, Jessie, 99 Billingsley, John, 22, 27 Church Street, 38, 128 Bitter Fame, 20 Clifton, 77

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222 Index

coal industry, pits in the immediate Denaby Thick (the ‘Bluebell Wood’), vicinity of Mexborough 62, 69 (Barnburgh, Cadeby, Denaby Denaby Wheelers, cycling club, 80 Main, Kilnhurst, Manvers, New Derby County, 14 Stubbin & Warrenvale Drift) Devon (Devonshire), 60, 65, 133, nationalisation of, 179 184, 187 1992–5 pit closure programme, 190 Dolcliffe Junior School, 46 Coleridge, S.T., 160 Domesday Book, 35 College Road, 109 Doncaster, 39, 43, 46, 174 Conisborough, 7, 35, 45, 48, 62, 69, Don, river, 37, 61, 64, 183 78, 83, 85, 95–6, 136 Don & Dearne, The, 2, 110, 122–3, Conquest, Robert, 147 125, 130–1, 137, 153–60, 163 Conservative Party, 180 Donne, John, 155–6, 165, 167, 169 Cook, Ian, 144 Drabble, Margaret, 109 Cope, Wendy, 158 Cornish, Ted, 132 Ecologist, The, 55 Court Green, 74, 98, 102, 132, 133 , 77, 79 Crimsworth Dene, 3, 26–28, 31, Education Act, 1944, 111 166, 192 Eliade, Mircea, 6 Crisp, Peter, 171 ‘Elegie XVII’, 167 Crookhill (Crookhill Hall Receiving Eliot, T.S., 2, 6, 16, 124, 128, 148 Hospital & grounds), 5, 7, 72–4, Elliot, Peter, 131, 156 76–108, 116, 140, 151, 162, Elmet, Celtic kingdom of, 36–37, 189 165–6, 172, 174, 183, 187–8, Elmet Trust, 1, 36, 192, 194 190, 193 Emory University (Hughes archive) see also ‘Crookhill, importance to Engine House Farm, 63 poetic development of’, under English Heritage, 35 ‘Hughes, Ted’ Enright, D.J., 148 Crossley, Donald, 19, 21, 27–30, 182 Environmental Revolution, The, 103 Crossley, Ellen, 9 ‘Epipsychidion’, 156, 165–7, 169–71 Crossley, Harry, 42 ‘Epithalamion for the Earl of Crowley, Aleister, 169 Somerset’, 156 Cwmardy, 34 Ewart-Evans, George, 6 Ewood, 10, 16, 17, 56 Daily Mail, The, 126, 130 ‘Extasie, The’, 155 Daily Telegraph, The, 104 Dainty, Jack, 110 Faas, Ekbert, 148 Darfield, 174 Faber & Faber, 189 Davids, Roy, 55–6 Fainlight, Ruth, 139 Davies, Peter, 3 Farmer’s Wife, The, 127 Dearne, river, 37 Farquahar, George, 127 , 36 Farrar, Albert, 17, 21 Denaby Common, 62 Farrar, Annie, 16, 17, 19, 26, 32 Denaby Grange (‘Denaby Rage’), Farrar, David, 29 62, 69 Farrar family, 15–17, 29, 56 Denaby Main, 7, 35, 48, 62, 69 Farrar, Hilda, 17, 19, 20, 29, 187 Denaby Main Colliery, 62 Farrar, James, 20

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Index 223

Farrar, John, 9, 10, 14, 19, 20, 183 Graves, Robert, 7, 132–3, 153 Farrar, Minnie, 17 Great Mount Quarry, 26–28 Farrar, Miriam, 16, 18 Green Eggs and Ham, 161 Farrar, Mitchell, 16, 17, 19 Green ‘Un, The, 43 Farrar, Thomas, 9, 12, 16, 17, 19, 20, Green Party, The, 55–6 26, 56 Griffiths, Geoffrey, 44, 69, 112, Farrar, Walter, 9, 12, 17, 19, 20, 26, 127–8, 134–6, 140–4 50, 56, 187 Grove Foxhounds, The, 62–3 Farrer, James, 16 Farrer, Robert, 16 Hadow, Sir Henry, 111 Fass, Ekbert, 148 Haggs Farm, 99, 108 Feinstein, Elaine, 3, 78, 139 Hague, James William ‘Iron’, 42 Ferrar, Nicholas, 16 Haig-Brown, Roderick, 24–26, 71, 82, Ferryboat Inn, 128, 132 102–3, 105–7, 151 Ferryboat Lane, 35, 61 Halifax, 8, 24 Findlay, Shirley Jean, 92, 157 Hanbury-Tenison, Robin, 55 First World War, 12, 14, 15 Hanging Hill, 63 see also ‘First World War, influence Hanging Wood, 64 of on’ under ‘Hughes, Ted’ Harris, Frieda, 169 Fisher, Angela, 132 Hatfield Main Colliery, 79 Fisher, John, 2, 6, 62, 112, 117, Hathershelf, 10, 16 119–22, 125–32, 137, 143,145, Havel, Vaclav, 143 154, 163, 180–1, 184, 187 Hawthorn, Mike, 42 see also, ‘Fisher John, influence of Hay, Ian, 127 on’, under ‘Hughes, Ted’ Hayhurst, Robert (‘Bob’), 83–5, 94, Fisher, Nancy, 128 134, 136, 172 Fitzgerald, Edward, 137 Heaney, Seamus, 6, 152 Fitzwilliam, Earl of, 63 Hebden Bridge, 11, 13, 14, 187, 189 Flavin, Martin, 127 Hengist, 35 Foster Clough, 23 Heptonstall, 29, 101, 132, 187, 193 Foster, Keith, 41 Herbert, George, 16 Francis Xavier, 187 Herbert, Zbigniew, 6 Frazer, James George, 6, 153 Heseltine, Michael, 55 Frieschutz, Die, 128 Hickleton, 78 Frost Gods, 129 Hickleton Hall, 78 Hickleton Main Colliery, 79 Gamekeeper, The, 82, 151 High Melton, 37 Gammage, Nick, 75, 175 Hinchliffe, Mark, 134, 144 Garde-Peach, L. du, 127 Hirst, Barry, 44, 53 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 35 Holub, Miroslav, 161 Gifford, Terry, 4, 6, 104, 149, 190–1 Hooton Gorse (‘the Gos’), 62, 69 Godwin, Fay, 189 Hooton Roberts, 61 Golden Bough, The, 153 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 6, 124, Goldsmith, Edward, 55 129, 150 Goole Grammar School, 111 How Green Is My Valley, 34 Goons, The, 160 Hughes, Carol (Orchard), 19, 133, 185 Grayson, Ted, 69 Hughes, ‘Crag Jack’, 13, 99

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224 Index

Hughes, Edith Farrar, 8, 11, 14, 15–19, entrepreneurial tradition of the 26, 30, 32, 45, 47, 50–2, 57, 60, Hughes/Farrar family, influence 73, 75, 100–1, 109, 115, 119, of on, 33, 52–57 120, 121, 122, 125, 172, 187 Farrar heritage, pride in, 16–17 see also, ‘Hughes, Edith, influence Farrar, Hilda, close relationship of on’, under ‘Hughes, Ted’ with, 19–20 Hughes, Frieda, 19 Farrar, Walter, close relationship Hughes, Gerald, 4, 8–9, 11, 14–15, with, 20 18, 23–29, 31–33, 40–1, 45, First World War, influence of on, 49–51, 59–61, 65–68, 81–2, 97, 12, 14, 15, 129, 185 102, 106, 107, 115, 133, 172, Fisher John, influence of on, 177, 180, 186 125–132 see also, ‘Hughes Gerald, influence fishing, importance of to, 2, 74, of on’, under ‘Hughes, Ted’ 80–2, 87–90,105–107 Hughes, John, 13 folklore, interest in, 2, 151 Hughes, Mary-Alice, 13 foxes, experiences of at Old Hughes, Nicholas, 19, 89 Denaby, 70–1, 73,175–77 Hughes, Olwyn, 8, 11, 13–14, 19, Hughes, Edith Farrar, influence of 26, 29–30, 32–33, 40, 48–51, 57, on, 15–19, 68, 76, 113, 115, 119–20, 122–5, Hughes, Gerald, influence of on, 128, 130, 154, 172 23–8, 31, see also, ‘Hughes Olwyn, influence Hughes, Olwyn, influence of on, of on’, under ‘Hughes, Ted’ 122–4 Hughes, Polly (‘Granny’), 13, 31 Hughes, William ‘Billy’, influence Hughes, Ted (Edward James) of on, 13–15 alliteration, use of, 159, 176–7 hyperbole, distinctive use of, 66, animals and nature, attitudes to, 149, 177–8, 81 2, 59, 73 Lawrence, D.H., parallels with in Banksfield, influence of, 29–31 early life, 49, 98–99, 108 ‘Burnt Fox’ dream, 28, 71 Manor Farm, importance to class and social status of, 6, 32, development of, 60–75 52–57, 75, 99–101 Mexborough, importance to class, attitudes to, 30, 184–6, 190–92 development of, 1, 4, 5, 32–58; countryside, love of, 2, 59, 74, popular culture, influence of 86–7; preference to experience on, 38–43, 48–51 in private and proprietorial Mexborough Grammar School: ways, 31, 59, 74, 98–9, 108, academic record at, 114–117; Crookhill, importance to poetic emergence of as poet at, 150–164; development of, 76–108; ‘pike friends, acquaintances at, pond’, importance of to, 80, 85, 136–138; importance to poetic 87–90, 97–98, 105–107 formation of, 2, 5, 109–146; cycling, devotion to, 80–1 personality and reputation Don & Dearne, The, early works of of at, 139–145; Sixth Form published in, 151–64 revues, writing and direction ecological conscience, of, 112–3, 130–1, 142; sporting development of, 2, 5, 102–104 activities, 83;

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Index 225

wider aspects of conduct and Birthday Letters, 150, 172 attitude at, 113, 116–7, 134–136; ‘Black Rhino, The’, 104 winning of scholarship to, 114, ‘Bride and Groom Lay Hidden For Mayne, Pauline, influence of on, Three Days’, 168 124–5 ‘Brother Bert’, 161 Mytholmroyd, importance to ‘Bull Moses, The’, 75, 174, 188 formation of, 1, 4, 5, 8–31 Capriccio, 172 mythology, interest in, 2, 129, 151 ‘Cat and Mouse’, 57 mythopoeic imagination, Cave Birds, 163, 168 development of, 5, 24–26, 31, Collected Poems, 174 65–67, 68, 72–3, 74, 88–90, ‘Comics’, 18 106–7 ‘Crag Jack’s Apostasy’, 188 National Service, 82, 93, 95, 162, Crow, 31, 74, 129, 150, 161 172–3 ‘Crow Hill’, 188 Old Denaby, importance of to, ‘Deadfall, The’, 27–28, 90 59–75 ‘Decay of Vanity, The’, 173 Pembroke College, winning of ‘Dick Straightup’, 153, 188 Open Exhibition to, 117–22, 145 ‘Dreamers’, 89 pike, importance of to, 80, 82, 85, ‘Dust as we are’, 15 87–90, 106–7 ‘Eclipse’, 73 Poet Laureate, role as, 1, 55, Elmet, 36, 190 144, 190 ‘Epithalalmium’ (unpublished), Poetry, distinctiveness of early, 164–73 148–150 ‘Esther’s Tomcat’, 174, 188 salmon and salmon fishing, Gaudete, 74, 129 importance of to, 90, 104, 106–7 ‘Great Irish Pike, The’, 89 shooting & trapping habits of, 2, ‘Gross Fuge’, 129 5, 73, 81–2, 87, 101–2, 103 ‘Gulkana, The’, 191 South Yorkshire, influence on ‘Harvesting, The’ (The Don & poetry of, 173–181; reasons for Dearne, 1946), 153 effacement in biography of, ‘Harvesting, The’ (Wodwo), 72, 75, 182–194 153, 174–5, 188 western films, influence of on, ‘Hawk in the Rain, The’, 149, 158, 39–40 175, 188 Wholey, Edna, importance to Hawk in the Rain, The, 94, 101, poetic development of, 76–108, 107, 129, 147, 149–50, 158, 162–173 163–4, 168, 172–5, 194 Wholey, John, relationship with, ‘Hawk Roosting’, 175 76–108 ‘Heptonstall’, 188 ‘violence’ in poetry of, 149 ‘Her husband’, 42, 46, 174, 188 Hughes, Ted, works mentioned ‘Here in the Green and ‘A motorbike’, 174, 177–181 Glimmering Gloom’, 157–60 ‘An Otter’, 175 ‘Horses’, 188 ‘Apple Tragedy’, 166 Howls and Whispers, 172 Ballad from a Fairy Tale’, 188 ‘Importance of Being Earnest, The’ ‘Bayonet Charge’, 15, 129 (review), 156

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Hughes, Ted, works ‘Rock, The’, 22, 188 mentioned–continued ‘Sacrifice’, 18 ‘Initiation’, 158–9 ‘Salmon Eggs’, 104 ‘Jaguar, The’, 149 Season Songs, 31, 75, 104, 150, ‘Law in the Country of the Cats’, 172, 186 153 ‘Second Glance at a Jaguar’, 73 Letters of Ted Hughes, The, 183 ‘Secretary’, 173–4, 188 Lupercal, 75, 154, 164, 174–5, 188 Selection of Shakespeare’s Verse, ‘Macaw and Little Miss’, 163 A, 170 ‘Manchester Skytrain’, 174 Shakespeare and the Goddess of ‘Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar, The’, Complete Being, 129, 173 16, 188 ‘Six Young Men’, 15, 129, 188 Meet My Folks, 161 ‘Snowdrop’, 175 ‘Miss Mambrett and the Wet ‘Some Pike for Nicholas’, 89 Cellar’, 39–40, 47–8, 174, 183 ‘Song’, 94, 107, 158, 162, 174, 188 Moortown, 75, 150, 174, 177 ‘Song for a Phallus’, 161 Moortown Diaries, 31, 104, 172, 186 ‘Source’, 11, 14, 18 ‘Mount Zion’, 12 ‘Starlings Have Come’, 159 ‘My Home’ (unpublished), 155–6, ‘Sub-Editorial’, 154 170 ‘Sugar Loaf’, 188 ‘Nicholas Ferrer’, 188 ‘Sunday’, 188 ‘November’, 175 ‘Sunstroke’, 64, 72, 75, 154, 174, ‘October Dawn’, 149 175–77, 188 ‘October Salmon’, 105 ‘Swifts’, 73 ‘Old Oats’, 63–5, 75 ‘Taw and Torridge’, 107 ‘On the Reservations’, 174, 190–92 ‘That Morning’, 174 ‘Orghast’, 150 ‘Theology’, 166 ‘Out’, 14, 15, 188 ‘Thistles’, 175 ‘Parlour Piece’, 168 ‘Thought Fox, The’, 149 ‘Pastoral Symphony Number One: ‘Thrushes’, 73, 175 Two Finger Arrangement’, 163–4 ‘Too Bad For Hell’, 158–9 ‘Pennines in April’, 188 ‘Two’, 25, 65 ‘Pigs’, 160 ‘Uncle Dan’, 161 ‘Pike’, 81, 88, 90, 105, 174–5, 188 ‘View of a Pig’, 174, 188 ‘Pike, The’, 89 ‘When Warriors Meet’, 131, 154 Poetry in the Making, 24, 88, ‘Wild West’, 151–3, 155, 158 104,183, 188 ‘Wind’, 149, 188 ‘Public Bar TV’, 153 Wodwo, 46, 75, 153, 164, 174–5, ‘Rain Horse, The’, 75, 174, 188 188 Rattle Bag, The (with Seamus Wolfwatching, 21, 104 Heaney), 152 ‘Wrot’s Writing on Lolps’, 160 ‘Recluse, The’, 158–60, 162 ‘Zeet Saga, The, Or Pale Tale One’, Remains of Elmet, 36, 150, 163, 160–1 189–90 Hughes, William (Billy), 8, 11, 12, ‘Reveille’, 166 13–15, 16, 26, 32, 33, 50–4, 60, River, 31, 75, 104, 106, 129, 150, 75, 100–1, 109, 119–21, 172, 172, 174 187

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see also, ‘Hughes, William (Billy), Look Back in Anger, 128 influence of on’, under ‘Hughes, Lord Halifax, 78, 99 Ted’ Lord Montagu, 110 Humble, Joseph, 77–8 Lord Scarborough, 81 Hunter, Joseph, 35, 77 Lumb Bank, 29, 187, 193 Huxley, Julian, 24 Lumb, Betty, 21 Huws, Daniel, 139–40, 184–5 Lyde, Joe, 185

Ibbeson, Graham, 3 MacGregor, Ian, 192 Idle, river, 37 Machon, Cecil, 68 Imagined Communities, 31 Machon, Leslie, 44, 68, 123, 138, Importance of Being Earnest, The, 156 140 Ireland, Mr, 110 Machon, Rita (nee Sawyer), 127, Ivy House Farm, 62 131, 140 Machon, Roy, 44, 68, 85–7, 123, 140 Jackson, Ashley, 3 Macleod, Miss, 115, 121, 151 Jefferson, Thomas, 17 Macmillan, Harold, 179 Jennings, Elizabeth, 147 Main Street, 32, 38, 58, 99, 109, Johnson, Alan, 42, 52, 110, 123, 124, 137, 174, 177, 193 127, 130–1, 136–7, 139–41, 183 Maisbeli, Battle of, 35 Johnson, Margaret, (nee Mee), 127, Major, John, 190 140 Maltby, 80 Jungle Book, The, 124 Maltby Grammar School, 111 Manor Farm (‘Top Farm’), 3, 5, 60, Kapek, Karel, 127 63–4, 67, 75, 153, 174–6, 190, Kay, Carol, 3 193 Kaussen, Jutta and Wolfgang, 49 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The, 171 Kell, Margaret, 95–6 Massingham, Harold, 129–30, 132, Kipling, Rudyard, 124, 152, 160 180 ‘knurr and spell’, 21 Matthew, Gospel of, 67 Mayne, Pauline, 6, 116, 120–2, Labour Party, The, 180 124–5, 132–3, 145, 151–2 ‘La Corona’, 167 McCaughey, Terence, 185 Larkin, Philip, 124, 147 Mee, Ben, 109 Laughton Pond, 81 Melbourne, Derbyshire, 91 Lawrence, David Herbert, 2, 6, 25, Merchant, Moelwyn, 73 49, 96, 98–9, 108, 110, 150, 165, Metaphysical Poets, the, 165, 167 168, 180 Methodism, 12, 56 Lear, Edward, 160 Mexborough, 1, 4, 5, 30, 32–58, Life and Sport on the Norfolk Broads, 82 83, 99, 173–4, 178–83, 187, 192, Life of Insects, The, 127 194 Listener, The, 188 see also, ‘Mexborough, importance London and North Eastern Railway to development of’, under (LNER), 38, 61 ‘Hughes, Ted’ London, Jack, 24 Mexborough Cricket Club, 42 London Magazine, 148 Mexborough & District Heritage Longfellow, H.W., 26, 84 Society, 126, 193

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Mexborough Grammar School , 36 (Mexborough Secondary School), Nuttall, ‘Limpy’, 61 42, 83, 92, 97, 108, 109–146, 150–1, 175, 183, 187, 190, 193–4 Oats, Mr (farmer at Manor Farm), see also, ‘Mexborough Grammar 64–5, 70, 75 School’, under ‘Hughes, Ted’ Old Denaby, 3, 5, 7, 35, 59–75, Mexborough School, 125 81, 84, 87, 133, 165, 174, 183, Mexborough Secondary Modern 187–8, 190, 193 School, 125 see also, ‘Old Denaby, importance Mexborough Town (football team), 42 to formation of’, under ‘Hughes, Mexborough Town Council, 129 Ted’ Middlebrook, Diane, 4, 72 O’ Malley, Brian, 143 Midgley, 16 Orchard, Jack, 186 Miller, Arthur, 127 Ossett, 136 Millom, 125 Oxford University, 124 Milton, John, 165 Owen, Wilfred, 129, 185 Miners’ Strike, 1984–5, 191–2 Modernism, 148 Pace Egg Play, 11 Monteith, Charles, 189 Paine, James, 77 Monty Python, 160 Panther, 24–25 Moorhouse, Alan, 109 Parks, Ian, 4, 125, 127, 129 Moortown Farm, 74, 98, 186 Patrington, 95, 173 Morpurgo, Horatio, 55, 142–3 Paulin, Tom, 55–6, 179–80 Moulin, Joanny, 98, 192 Peamore Estate, 60, 133 Mount Zion Methodist Church, 12 Peas Hills, 63–4, 174 Movement, The, 147–9 Peat, Robert C., 110 Myers, Lucas, 20, 139, 185 Pembroke College, 117–122, 145 Mytholm, 13 Pero, Thomas, R., 87, 104 Mytholmroyd, 1, 4, 5, 8–31, 56–7, 59, Phillpotts, Eden, 127 65, 67, 84, 87, 98, 172, 181–2, Pilinsky, Janos, 6 187–9, 192–4 Pilsley, 79 see also, ‘Mytholmroyd, Pink ‘Un, The, 43 importance to formation of’, Plantagenet, Hamelin, 35 under ‘Hughes, Ted’ Plath, Aurelia, 184 Plath, Sylvia, 6, 19, 29, 97, 101, 115, National Coal Board, 179 139, 143, 144, 187, 193, 194 Neil, William Compton Hume Plath, Warren, 184 ‘Angus’, 117, 122 Plummer, Brian, 40–1, 51 Neo-romanticism, 148 ‘Poem in October’, 159 Nettleton, Keith, 48 Poetry and Anarchism, 185 New Apocalypse, 147 Poets of the Fifties, 148 New Lines, 147, 149 Pontefract, 43 Nicholson, Max, 103 Popa Vasko, 6, 161 Nicholson, Norman, 125 Porrit, Jonathan, 55–6 North Elmsall, 37 Pound, Ezra, 148 North Tawton, 133 Prince Charles, 55–6

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Proctor, Jud, 109 Scout Rock, 9 ‘Prohibition, The’, 167 Scott, Cyril, 69 Scott, Sir Peter, 103 Queen Mary College, 119 Second World War, 33, 43–5, 64, 80 Queen Mother, The, 55 Service, Robert, 133, 152 Seuss, Dr, 161 Radin, Paul, 6 Seymour, Brian, 19 Raine, Craig, 144 Shakespeare, William, 2, 25, 56, 129, Raleigh, Sir Walter, 17 150, 158, 165, 167 Ransom, John Crowe, 6 Sheaf, river, 37 Rawmarsh, 35, 174 Sheffield, 39 Read, Herbert, 185 Shelley, P.B., 128, 155–6, 158, 165, Ready, Oliver, 82 167, 169–71 ‘Reasons For Not Writing Orthodox Shield, G.W., 143 Nature Poetry’, 149 ‘Shooting of Dan McGrew, The’, 152 Return to the River, 105–7 Shooting Times, The, 82, 151 ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, The, Silver, the Story of an Atlantic Salmon, 160 106 Roberts, Neil, 4, 6, 27, 29, 65, 158–60 Skellow Grange, 78 Roberts, S.C., 117 Slack, 29 Robertshaw, Derek, 19 Slack Bottom, 29 Rochdale Canal, 9 Sleath family, 173 Roche Abbey, 81, 174 Smart, Christopher, 120, Roman Rig, 35 Smart, David, 62, 69, 126, 128, 132 Rosenberg, Isaac, 129 Smith family (Ted Hughes’s Rosicrucian ‘Chymical Marriage’, 168 maternal grandparents), 10, 16 Ross, David, 185 Social ecology, 191 Rotherham, 39, 46 ‘Something Nasty in the Bookshop’, Royal Air Force, 60 147–8, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 26 ‘Sonnets on the Poets’, 157 Rubiyyat of Omar Khayyam, The, 137 ‘Song of Hiawatha, The’, 26, 84, Rugby Street, 173 107, 151, 162 rush-bearing, 11 Sons and Lovers, 29 Ryknild Street, 35 South Elmsall, 37 South Kirkby, 7, 37, 54 Sagar, Keith, 1, 4, 6, 66, 82, 99, 102, South Yorkshire, 7, 172, 173–181, 104, 108, 114, 117, 123 182, 183, 188, 194 Sandbeck Estate, 81 see also entries for ‘South Sassoon, Siegfried, 129 Yorkshire’, under ‘Hughes, Ted’ Saul of Tarsus, 175 South Yorkshire Navigation Canal, Savile, Samuel, 35 39, 61 Scargill, Arthur, 192 Spenser, Edmund, 120 Schofield Street, 137 Stevenson, Anne, 20 Schofield Street Junior School, 57, 114 St. Andrews University, 119 Schofield Technical College, 137 St. Peter’s Church, Barnburgh, 174, Scigaj, Leonard, 104 193

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St. Peter’s Church, Conisborough, Wanderings of Ossian, The,133, 135 95, 164 Waterhouse, Keith, 41 Strafford Sands, 35 Wath Grammar School, 111 Survival International, 55 Wath-upon-Dearne, 35, 45 Sutcliffe, F&H, 11 Watkinson, H.L., 112, 118–20, 123, Sutcliffe Farrar, 9 135 Sutcliffe, John, 9 Went, river, 37 Swift, Gilbert, 136 Wesley, Charles, 16 Swinton, 7, 35, 45, 48, 62, 174, 178 Wesley, John, 16 Swinton ‘Long Mile’, 193 Wevill, Assia, 89, 139 Wevill, David, 102 Tarka the Otter, 66, 68, 102, 133–5, West Country Fly Fishing, 90 151 Westfield College, 119, 124 Tarn, Patricia, 46 West Riding County Council, 76, 78 Tarot, The 168 West Riding of Yorkshire, 32–3 Ted and Crookhill, 91 White Goddess, The, 132, 153 Ted Hughes: Laureate of the Free White Sheep of the Family, The, 127 Market, 55 Wholey, Douglas, 80, 83, 87–8, 91, Ted & I, 4, 23 96–7, 100–1, 164, 173 Tempest, The, 158 Wholey, Edna, 80, 82–5, 91–7,107, Tennant, Emma, 139 140, 155–6, 162–174 Texas Quarterly, The, 40, 47 also,‘Wholey, Edna, importance to Thatcher, Margaret, 55, 179, 192 poetic development of’, under Thunder Rock, 116, 124, 141, 154, 157 ‘Hughes, Ted’ Thurber, James, 137 Wholey, family, 5, 78, 80, 82, 84, Thomas, Dylan, 42, 147–8, 159 108,144, 173 Thomas, Edward, p19 Wholey, John (jnr), 76, 80–8, 91–2, Thornber’s Poultry Company, 9 94, 97, 99, 101–2, 116, 134, Thorne Grammar School, 111 136, 172 Times, The, 160–1 also, ‘Wholey, John, relationship Todmorden, 16, 187 with’, under ‘Hughes, Ted’ Top Fold Farm, 62 Wholey, George ‘Judd’, 100 Wholey, John William (snr), 76, University College, 119 78–80, 84, 87, 97, 99–100 Wholey, Olive, 78, 80, 82, 97, Vinah’s Pond (the ‘Old Ox Bow’), 61 99–100 Viviani, Emilia, 165 Wholey, Thomas, 78–9, 100 Voss Bark, Anne, 90 White, Colin, 185 White Lee Iron Works, 38 Wademan, Barry, 57–8, 127, 131, Whitfield, Brenda, 156 137, 140 Wilcockson, Colin, 117–8, 121 Wademan, Winifred (nee Hope), Wildfowl Trust, 103 127, 140 Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, 103 Wagner, Erica, 161 Wilding, Nick, 27 Wain, John, 147, 149 Wild Salmon and Steelhead, 87, 104 ‘Waltzing Matilda’, 26 Williams, Emlyn, 127

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Williamson, Henry, 2, 24, 66, 133, 134 Woodyeare, William, 77 Wilson, Alice, 92 Wordsworth, William, 19 Wind of Heaven, The 127 World Wildlife Fund, 103 Winks, Horace, 48 Winks, Thomas William, 48, 111 Yeats, William Butler, 2, 25, 129, Wolfwatching 133, 148, 150–1, 158–9 Woodyeare, Emily, 77 Yorkshire Post, The, 95 Woodyeare, John Fountain, 77 Yorkshire on Sunday, 50

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