|
|
The Committee
|
Don Lee, Carole Collinson, James Booth, Andrew Eastwood, Jean Hartley, David Pattison, Carol Rumens, Eddie Dawes.
- The Philip Larkin Society Committee -
|
Chairman - Edwin Dawes
Vice Chairman - Jean Hartley
Treasurer - David Pattison
Secretary - Andrew Eastwood
Education Officer - Belinda Hakes
External Liaison Officer - Don Lee
Events Officer - Carole Collison
Media Relations Officer - Wendy Cole
Co-Editor About Larkin - Janet Brennan
Literary Adviser & Co-Editor About Larkin - James Booth
Merchandising Officer- Amber Allcroft
Committee Member- Carol Rumens
The Chairman
|
The Chairman
Edwin Dawes.
|
Edwin Dawes
Edwin (Eddie) Dawes arrived in Hull from the University of Glasgow in 1963 following his appointment as the Foundation Professor of Biochemistry. During his subsequent career he served terms as Dean of Science, Pro-Vice Chancellor and, for a record period of eleven years, Chairman of the Library Committee, during which time he worked closely with Philip Larkin and they became good friends. He is now Professor Emeritus.
His researches have been principally in various areas of microbiological biochemistry and in the latter part of his career focused on the production of biodegradable plastics by micro-organisms, in association with Zeneca, who marketed the first such commercial product, Biopol. In addition to numerous papers in scientific journals, he has written several textbooks; the first, which pioneered a quantitative approach to the teaching of biochemistry, was translated into six languages. He has served as Chief Editor of both The Journal of General Microbiology and FEMS Microbiology Letters and as Publications Manager of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies, of which organisation he is currently Archivist.
Eddie is a Vice-Chairman and Trustee of Yorkshire Cancer Research and retired as chairman of its Scientific Advisory Committee at the end of 2006. His extracurricular activities include conjuring and he is Honorary Vice-President and Historian of The Magic Circle, recipient of awards for his contributions to British and international magic, a member of the Hall of Fame of the Society of American Magicians and Chairman of the Centre for the Magic Arts in London. He has authored several books on historical
and biographical aspects of magic.
As a friend and colleague of Philip Larkin, he was honoured to accept the invitation to chair the Larkin Society on its foundation in 1995.
Contact The Chairman
Return To The Committee
The Vice Chairman
|
The Vice Chairman
Jean Hartley.
|
Jean Hartley
Jean Hartley was born in Hull in 1933 and attended Thoresby High School. She worked as a shorthand typist, gave birth to a daughter in 1951 and married George Hartley in 1953. Her second daughter was born in 1954 when she and George started the literary magazine Listen. Such was its critical success that they decided to form The Marvell Press and to inaugurate it with a collection by the little known poet Philip Larkin. The Less Deceived was followed by volumes of poems by writers such as Anthony Thwaite and Donald Davie and in 1960 they founded Listen Records to produce LPs of poets reading their own work. In 1968 Jean left George and the publishing concern.
In 1968 Jean entered Hull University's English department. She graduated in 1971 and in 1972 received an MA. Jean worked as a teacher at Amy Johnson High School for 4 years before taking a lecturing job at Hull's further education college. She took early retirement in 1989, the year her autobiography Philip Larkin, The Marvell Press and Me was published. It was followed in 1995 by Philip Larkin's Hull and East Yorkshire a short guide to places connected with the poet. She now works as a painter, graphic artist and freelance writer. A solo exhibition of her paintings was mounted at Beningborough Hall, near York, in 2001. She is at present compiling, with Jim Orwin, a book of Philip Larkin sketches,
drawings and doodles.
Jean has been a member of the Society's committee since its inception. She edited the first few issues of About Larkin and later, with Maeve Brennan two more issues.
Contact The Vice Chairman
Return To The Committee
The Treasurer
|
The Treasurer
David Pattison.
|
David Pattison
Dr David Pattison began his second term as Treasurer in July 2006 having served a first term 2000-2003. He has a background in accounting and general management with, among others, the Kingfisher Group and Debenhams.
In 1988 he changed tack by enrolling as a full time undergraduate reading Humanities, graduating in 1991 with First Class Honours. After completing an MA (University of York) he accepted the post of Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at the University of Lincoln. His doctoral thesis (University of Hull) on the work of Dambudzo Marechera completed in 1999 was published as No Room For Cowardice by Africa World Press in 2001. He has contributed widely to journals and books mainly in connection with his interest in the literature of central Southern Africa.
Other publications include two collections of poetry (Casting A Faint Shadow, National Poetry Foundation (1991) and The Face On The Page, Robin Press (1992), a third collection is due in late 2007. His novel This Was Mr Bleaney's Bike (Wotlarx Press, 2006) has been well received. Also a playwright David's plays have been performed in Hull and Savannah and his work on age related social exclusion The Dying Of The Light will feature at the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He recently accepted an invitation for his new play Boots to be performed at the Manchester 24:7 Festival in July 2007.
Contact The Treasurer
Return To The Committee
The Secretary
|
The Secretary
Andrew Eastwood.
|
Andrew Eastwood
Andrew Eastwood was born in Audenshaw in Manchester in 1952. He attended Audenshaw Grammar School before going to St John's College in York to train as a teacher. He gained his first degree in history and education at Leeds University in 1975. then further academic Master's degree in educational psychology at Manchester University in 1984, while still working as a history and geography teacher. In 1984 Andrew started work at a special school for children with learning difficulties in Stalybridge. In 1988, Andrew went to Nottingham University to undertake a further Master's degree which formed his professional training as an Educational Psychologist, following which he took up a post in
Leeds. He moved to Humberside in 1994 and he now works as a Senior Educational Psychologist in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Andrew enjoys drama, ballet and music and, in fitter days, used to referee football!
Andrew discovered the Philip Larkin Society through a mutual school friend of the late Maeve Brennan in 1999 and attended a number of the Society's functions with them both. Andrew inexplicably, in a mad moment, volunteered at the 2005 AGM to become the Society's Membership Secretary and subsequently agreed to become the General Secretary upon the retirement of Dr John Osborne.
Contact The Secretary
Return To The Committee
The Education Officer
Belinda Hakes
Belinda Hakes is head of English at Wyke Sixth-Form College, Hull. She took over the editorship of About Larkin following Maeve Brennan's death in 2003 and oversaw issues 17 - 21. She organises the Society's annual spring study day on Larkin's work designed for sixth-formers.
Contact The Education Officer
Return To The Committee
The External Liaison Officer
|
The External Liaison Officer
Don Lee.
|
Don Lee
Donald Lee is a war-baby; born, bred and still living in Manchester. He has had a career in Insurance, Local Government and as a tutor with the The Worker's Educational Association W.E.A. designing outdoor education courses for adults.
Lee first became aware of Larkin's work when browsing in Rare Records, a specialist shop in Manchester whilst checking their railway records section. A copy of the Listen Whitsun Weddings LP - The one with him leaning out of the train window, had evidently strayed out of the spoken word section and got Lee hooked. Then he name checked Larkin as the Jazz reviewer on the Daily Telegraph, agreed with what he said. The rest is history.
In parallel with his professional career Lee had developed an interest as a rights of way campaigner, and deciding that Larkin and footpaths were an unlikely but workable combination (and being in a position to do something about it) in the 1980s he planned Paths and Poets walks that had the students of the W.E.A. choosing and discussing relevant poems on route. A 1995 summer school in Staffordshire extended the idea to a whole week when Lee directed Dark Night Creeps In - In The Footsteps Of Philip Larkin and included walks in; Coventry, Wellington and Leister, with the highlight a working party searching for the Larkin family group of long forgotten graves and reclaiming more than a dozen for posterity.
On the formation of the Philip Larkin Society Lee began to develop the concept of the Society's Birthday Walks (please refer to past issues of About Larkin for more) the remarkable story, discoveries and eccentricities of which remain to be told. Current projects are based in Cottingham, Warwick and Conventry.
Contact The External Liaison Officer
Return To The Committee
The Events Officer
The Media Relations Officer
Wendy Cole
Is the current Media relations officer.
Contact The Media Relations Officer
Return To The Committee
Co-Editor About Larkin
Literary Adviser & Co-Editor About Larkin
|
Literary Adviser
& Co-Editor About Larkin
James Booth.
|
Professor James Booth
James Booth was appointed to a Junior Lectureship in the University of Hull in 1968, picking his way through a student sit-in in order to reach his interview. He still has a letter from the Librarian, Philip Larkin, defending the staff loan renewal system on the grounds that books were at that time increasingly being stolen. Apart from semesters in Nigeria (1978-9) and Jamaica (1984) James has remained in Hull. His research interests range widely, his publications including Writers and Politics in Nigeria (Hodder and Stoughton, 1981), and Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles: vol.48 Northern Museums
(OUP and the British Academy, 1997). He is an authority on the coinage of the eighth-century Kingdom of Northumbria.
He has published two books on Philip Larkin: Philip Larkin: Writer (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991) and Philip Larkin: The Poet's Plight (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). He has also edited Larkin's early girl's-school stories and poems as Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions (Faber, 2002), and a volume of critical essays, New
Larkin's for Old (Macmillan 2000), arising from the first Hull International Conference on the Work of Philip Larkin mounted by the Society in 1997. He is currently head of The Department of English at the University of Hull.
After initially opposing the idea of a Larkin Society, on the grounds that Larkin himself would have derided the idea, James joined shortly after the PLS's inception in 1995. He has remained on the committee ever since in a variety of roles. In 1997, following the crisis which led the Society to dispense with its paid secretary, Janet Whitehead, James took over from Jean Hartley as editor of About Larkin, overseeing nine issues (nos. 6-14). For many years he was the Society's first contact point for membership and merchandising enquiries, though much of this work has now been taken up by abler hands. He catalogued Larkin's effects from 105 Newland Avenue, bought by the Society following the death of Monica Jones in 2001 (now on loan to the Hull Museums Service and the East Riding Museums Service). Later he assisted Maeve Brennan in writing her Memoir
The Philip Larkin I Knew (Manchester University Press 2002). James was Chairman of the Conference Organising committee for the first and third Hull International Larkin Conferences (1997,2007). He is a member of the newly founded Philip Larkin Centre for Poetry and Creative Writing in the University, and liaises between the Centre and the Society.
Contact The Society Literary Advisor
Return To The Committee
The Merchandising Officer
Committee Member
|
