Philip Larkin (1922-1985)
English Poet (and Librarian):
On leaving Oxford, Larkin found himself in a quandary. He wanted to write, but felt that he should get a job. He attempted, twice, to enter the civil service, but failed, perhaps because of his stammer, which persisted until he was thirty. Instead he secured a job as Librarian of the Wellington urban district council in Shropshire. This was followed by a stint as Assistant Librarian at the University College of Leicester, then Sub-Librarian at Queens University in Belfast and finally he became head of the Brynmore Jones Library at the University of Hull. Hull would be his home until he died.
At first, he hated both his job and its location, but he came to accept both. Librarianship suited him, he later told Miriam Gross of the Observer: 'it has just the right blend of academic interest and administration that seems to match my particular talents'. And Hull was sufficiently out-of-the-way. In the same interview, he said: 'I love all the Americans getting on to the train at King's Cross and thinking they're going to come and bother me, and then looking at the connections and deciding they'll go to Newcastle and bother Basil Bunting instead'.
~ LION: Literature Online
On leaving Oxford, Larkin found himself in a quandary. He wanted to write, but felt that he should get a job. He attempted, twice, to enter the civil service, but failed, perhaps because of his stammer, which persisted until he was thirty. Instead he secured a job as Librarian of the Wellington urban district council in Shropshire. This was followed by a stint as Assistant Librarian at the University College of Leicester, then Sub-Librarian at Queens University in Belfast and finally he became head of the Brynmore Jones Library at the University of Hull. Hull would be his home until he died.
At first, he hated both his job and its location, but he came to accept both. Librarianship suited him, he later told Miriam Gross of the Observer: 'it has just the right blend of academic interest and administration that seems to match my particular talents'. And Hull was sufficiently out-of-the-way. In the same interview, he said: 'I love all the Americans getting on to the train at King's Cross and thinking they're going to come and bother me, and then looking at the connections and deciding they'll go to Newcastle and bother Basil Bunting instead'.
~ LION: Literature Online