SAUCY POET BUT DON’T SHOW IT

Hull City of Culture’s latest success is an exhibition of its University’s famous librarian and poet Philip Larkin – not his poems but his personal effects. While studying at Hull in the 1960s, I asked Larkin if he held poetry seminars I could attend. He looked at me... then walked off without comment. Larkin was a peculiar man and the exhibition highlights his mistresses, jazz records, lawn mower and even a tape recording of him chatting with his mum.

What’s not on show is the famous collection of porn mags he stashed in his office closet. The artist’s blue period, no doubt! Ursula and Savannah. Oxford reminds me of my two years at the Labour movement’s Ruskin College in Oxford.

Places were funded by the Labour movement and offered opportunities for people like me with no qualifications outside of a secondary modern school.

As a family man, the only way I could enjoy my two years at Ruskin followed by three at Hull University was being granted a maintenance allowance.

This week a study showed that the poorest students finish with £57,000 debt thanks to the Tories tripling tuition fees.

The same day Boris Johnson’s brother Jo, the Minister for Universities, said the £9,000 yearly fee is accessible to all.

As his brother would say, that’s balderdash and piffle!

We must scrap tuition fees so a university education can be experienced because you want it not because you can afford it.