TED'S BED

Today a bit of a do at the birthplace of our most famous local literary protege Ted Hughes - 1 Aspinall Street. A modest terraced house where the late Poet Laureate spent the first eight years of his life. Sundry luminaries in tow including poet Simon Armitage , who lives in nearby Marsden, and Ted Hughes's widow.

Best of all was the chance to talk to Ted's boyhood pals(pictured) from Burnley Road Primary School. It seems he never forgot them and stayed in touch all his life , inviting them down to his farm in Devon and keeping tabs when visiting his Aunty Hilda in Mytholmroyd.

The house is now a holiday let - with plaque outside - and will no doubt be a place of pilgrimage for writers and creative types. It should also be seriously good news for the Elmet Trust which has been trying for years to fund a Ted Hughes Centre. And for Mytholmroyd.

The other highlight was clambering up to the attic where Ted shared a bedroom with his brother and peering out of the very skylight which looks over to Scout Rock and the surrounding valley which inspired so many poems. - Being of diminutive proportions had to stand on a chair to do so which broke the health and safety regulations apparently but it was well worth it..... Buffet and pots of tea afterwards where I discovered that Ted and his poet pal Seamus Heaney often fetched up in town a little the worse for wear from literary readings - and ordered fustian trousers in several sizes too small ( ah, the vanity of poets) . Ted apparently liked a pint , Indeed the Stubbing Wharf pub a few hundred yards from my house has an entire poem devoted to it. Good spot for another plaque methinks. .......A nice change from plannng applications.