Message to Simon Armitage

Sea Colours in Hastings one Friday evening

Hello, Simon - I wish you well but I hope you don't regret it - taking on this poet laureate cloak. I can understand your parents weeping for joy. Mine would have done, too, if our circumstances had been the same (but still, I would have hoped to have followed Zephaniah).

I've often heard you on the radio and felt uplifted and comforted by your Yorkshire tones which seemed to speak to my South Derbyshire ones. It was a brave thing to do - giving up the day job to become a poet.

You said on the Today programme that yes, you were aware of Andrew Motion's problems with the role. You said you hoped that the same thing didn't happen to you. Didn't know if it would. Thought you'd be OK.

Well, I hope so, too. I wish you well. Hope there are no more royal babies, marriages or deaths to get in the way of your own babies, marriages and deaths and the chances to sit on the beach in the evening and stare out to sea - or maybe on the Yorkshire Moors? Ten years is a long time.
..............
19 May 2019
I've just read Andrew Motion's piece in The Guardian congratulating Simon and advising him to approach things in his own way - through the back door, the chimney - not the obvious front door. This is an interesting piece 'Simon Armitage knows where the heffalump traps are'.