Librarian and poet Philip Larkin was better known as a misanthrope. A grouch whose best know poem was about parents. A little Englander who admired Enoch Powell and some years after his death was revealed to be a racist. Of course given how in his life he went from Coventry to Hull, he had a lot to be miserable about.
A N Wilson whose documentary on John Betjeman I was not entirely enthused with does a better job here. Wilson does not over look Larkin's shortcomings, after all he is a product of his age. Wilson notes his contradictions, a jazz lover who had peculiar views of black people. A person who was a fogey but not entirely against the modern age and by gum did he show it with some of the cursing words he used.
Larkin wrote about a Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s. A post war Britain that had undergone bombings, slum clearance and rebuilding. Unfortunately that meant brutalist architecture, how ironic it is that Larkin ends up being the right man to describe this Britain. When the Beatles came and heralded a summer of love, Larkin laments that it was all too late for him.
What struck me the most about this programme was that Larkin was capable of such tender and romantic poetry. This is something which is overlooked about him and something Wilson went a long way to put right.
We learn about his rather complicated love life and how this influenced his romantic poetry.
I thought Wilson was too much of a fan of Betjeman which left me disappointed about his film about him. Although Wilson knew Larkin when he was alive he is determined to view him with a detached retina an opinion that has become milder now that Wilson has got older. It was an intriguing and appealing programme about a celebrated poet who has divided opinions.