Philip Larkin (108 page)

Maeve Brennan was a Library Assistant when Larkin arrived in Hull in 1955. She recalled: ‘On Monday mornings he would ask: “Well, any more engagements this weekend; or better still, any disengagements?”’

Larkin’s first University of Hull library staff portrait, 1957, taken by delayed-action shutter release.
Front row:
Maeve Brennan, Arthur Wood (Arnold in ‘Self ’s the Man’), Larkin, John Farrell, Mary Wrench.
Back row, second from left:
Larkin’s newly appointed secretary, Betty Mackereth;
Middle row, second from left:
Wendy Mann.

Larkin met Judy Egerton in Belfast in 1951, and they corresponded regularly. She became Assistant Keeper of the British Collection at the Tate Gallery from 1974.

Anthony Powell, Hilly Amis, Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin in London.

Extract and drawings from a letter to Judy Egerton’s six-year old daughter, Bridget, 4 January 1956. Larkin has modified his handwriting to make it more legible.

Pearson Park, Hull: the lake, and the poet at the Venetian window of no. 32. Philip Larkin moved into his top-floor flat in October 1956, and this self-portrait is dated 1958, the year he completed his poem ‘The Whitsun Weddings’.

In 1957 Larkin shared a discreet intimacy with Library Assistant Mary Wrench (later Judd). She recalled his ‘innocent natural sense of fun’; ‘he called me and miaowed and when I turned round he had put on a cat mask’. Mary married in 1960 and Larkin and Betty Mackereth were godparents of her first child.

Maeve Brennan,
c.
1960. Jean Hartley commented: ‘Whenever he spoke of Maeve or looked at her, it was with a sense of having won first prize.’

Monica Jones in tights given to her by Eva Larkin. Philip wrote to his mother in January 1960: ‘Monica liked the striped tights, but they don’t fit exactly – the feet are too big, and the ankles too large.’

The new University of Hull library under construction, October 1958. Larkin’s shadow here shows his flair for photography.

‘The Main Undergraduate Reading Room’, from the booklet commemorating the opening of the library.

Larkin with the Queen Mother and the Vice-Chancellor, Sir Brynmor Jones, at the official opening of the new University of Hull library, 20 June 1960. This was the high point of Larkin’s career as a librarian.