Ted Hughes: Timeline

© Ann Skea

This list of Ted Hughes’ publications, life-events and interests is not comprehensive. It was compiled from my own collection of books, newspaper articles, recordings, letters and notes to give an overview of important and formative influences which have helped to shape his work. It also suggests the date at which some of his works originated.

It is best used in conjunction with a bibliography such as that produced by Keith Sagar and Steven Tabor (Sagar, K and Tabor, S. Ted Hughes: A Bibliography, 1946 -1995 , 2nd Edition, Mansell, London, 1998).

A list of the abbreviations used will be found at the end of the document

Date

Published Books

Published Poems, Broadsides(BS), Edited works(Ed).

Reviews, Essays, Current Interests, Events

1930

Born August 17th , Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, to William Henry and Edith (neé. Farrar) Hughes. Sister (Olwyn) two years older; brother (Gerald) ‘… was ten years older than me and made my early life a kind of paradise… which was ended abruptly by the war’ (Letter to AS Nov.1982 re. ‘Two’).
‘Memoir’ (DT , 21 Nov.1998) says that Hughes was ‘… brought up on his grandmother’s farm’. Olwyn Hughes writes that this is incorrect but that they often visited nearby farms. ‘My first six years shaped everything’ (Interview. DT , 2 Nov.1998)

1938-9

Mytholmroyd house sold Sept. 1938. Family move to Mexborough, Yorkshire. Own a newspaper and tobacco shop.

1943

Mexborough Grammar School

1945

First poems written. ‘Zulus and the Wild West… All in imitation of Kipling’.(UU 20)

1946

First poems published in School magazine - Don and Dearne

‘Harvesting’ (essay) (Don and Dearne) rewritten as ‘The Harvesting’ (story) (BBC - Dec 1960)

Name used: Eeple Jote Hyewze

Influences: Folktales, Yeats, Hopkins, Virgil, Eliot, the ‘very different rhythms of the King James Bible’ (WP 5-6)

1948

Wins open exhibition to Cambridge University.

1949

National Service: Basic training at RAF West Kirby, the Wirral. Fighter plotting at RAF Patrington, East Riding, Yorks. Spends much time reading and re-reading all of Shakespeare (‘… he literally knows Shakespeare by heart…’(SPLH Aug. 2 1956)

‘Song’, ‘came to me as such things should in your nineteenth year - literally a voice in the air at about 3.00 A.M… ’(PR 11).

1951

October: Holding an Entrance Exhibition in Englsh, enters Pembroke College, Cambridge, to study English. ‘I spent most of my time reading folklore and Yeats’s poems’ (UU 56) ‘Beethoven’s music… was my therapy’ (PR 85)

1952

Family return to West Yorkshire to live at The Beacon, Heptonstall.

1953

Fox dream: drops English to study Archaeology and Anthropology (WP 8-9)

1954

‘The Little Boys and the Seasons’ (Granta)

‘Song of the Sorry Lovers’ (Chequer)

‘The Jaguar’ / ‘The Casualty’ (Chequer)

Pseudonym - Daniel Hearing

Pseudonym - Peter Crew

June: Leaves Pembroke College. Graduates with Honours in Part 1 of English Tripos (2/1), and in section A, Part 1 of the Archaeological and Anthropological Tripos.

1955

1956

‘The Woman with Such High Heels’ (Delta 5)

Read a Penguin of American Poets ‘… that started me writing… ’, ‘… infatuated with John Crowe Ransom’ (UU 210)

Comment on Chequer (review): Pseudonym - Jonathan Dyce

Living in London (Rugby St.) and Cambridge.

Rose gardener, night-watchman, zoo attendant, reader for J. Arthur Rank, schoolteacher. Planning to teach in Spain then emigrate to Australia (SPLH May 4).

1956

Writes ‘The Thought Fox’

‘Secretary’/ ‘Soliloquy of a Misanthrope’/ ‘Fallgrief’s Girl–Friends’/ ‘Meeting’/ ‘Law in the Country of Cats’ (St. Botolph’s Review)

Many Hawk in the Rain poems published

Feb. 25 - Launch of St Botolph’s Review. Meets Sylvia Plath

March 23 - Second meeting with Sylvia.

June 16 - Married to Sylvia Plath at St. George the Martyr’s Church, Bloomsbury.

June/July/August in Paris and Spain. Writing animal fables (SPJ . ‘Benidorm’)

Aug - To Heptonstall

Sept - Audition for BBC - poetry readings (SPLH Sept. 28).

Oct 10 - To London for BBC reading of Yeats’s poems. Misses Sylvia at station (SPLH Oct. 16; Birthday Letters ‘Fate Playing’)

Nov - Living in Cambridge (55 Eltisley Ave.) Teaching English and Drama at the Coleridge Secondary Modern School, Cambridge.

Astrology, horoscopes, hypnotism, tarot and experimenting with Ouija board (SPLH Oct. 28)

1957

Sept - Hawk in the Rain

April - ‘O’Kelly’s Angel’ (story) (Granta)

May - ‘Bartholemew Pygge Esquire’ (story) (Granta)

Many Hawk in the Rain poems published

Aug. 27 - First Lupercal poem published: ‘Dream of Horses’ (Gracecourt review)

Dec - ‘Everyman’s Odyssey’ ( Landmarks and Voyages)

Feb - Hawk in the Rain wins Harper publication contest .

Feb - Pan and Ouija board (SPLH Feb 8). Snatchcraftington, alphabetical fables (SPLH Feb. 24)

April 14 - BBC - reading (1 poem)

May - Hears Robert Frost reading at Cambridge (SPLH May 24)

June - To Yorkshire. Then to USA on RMS Queen Elizabeth (Southampton to New York). (Wellesley then Cape Cod)

Aug - To Northampton (337 Elm St.) Sylvia teaching at Smith College

Aug - Meets Bill and Dido Merwin.

Nov. 20 - Poetry reading at NYC Poetry Centre. (SPL II 192).

Nov. 28 - Recording poetry reading for Woodward Poetry Room, Harvard University. (SPL II 190).

Dec. 15 - BBC - reading ‘Hawk in the Rain’

1958

Many Lupercal poems published. ‘… invocations to writing… ’ (UU 209), ‘a deliberate effort to find a simple concrete language’ (UU 209)

Spring - Teaching at Amherst, University of Massachusetts.

4 March - Reading at Amherst Student Union, University of Massachusetts (SPLH 2 March)

April 11 - Poetry reading at Harvard (SPLH April 22)

May - Reading Creon in Paul Roche’s Oedipus trans. At Smith.(SPJ May 19)

May 4 - Meets Baskins (Leonard and Esther).

June 13 - Six Lupercal poems recorded in a joint poetry reading with Sylvia Plath for the Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Harvard University. USA.

July - Summons Pan with Ouija board (SPJ July 4; SPLH July 5))

'Billy Hook and the Three Souvenirs' (children’s story) published in Jack and Jill.

Aug. 27 - BBC - (6 Lupercal poems)

August - Rents flat in Boston (9 Willow Street, Beacon Hill)

Dec - Making wolf mask (SPJ Dec. 28)

Guinness Poetry Award

1959

Pike (BS)(LE 50)

Many Lupercal poems published.

Doing "exercises in meditation and invocation… [from] magic literature" (UU 210)

Oct - Writes House of Taurus (scrapped) ‘ … symbolic drama based on the Euripides play The Bacchae ‘ (SPLH Oct. 7). Precursor to Gaudete (ATH 186-7)

Nov - Revising Meet My Folks (SPJ Nov. 1)

April 16 Gives two lectures to English classes at Smith College.

April 28 Working on Meeet My Folks! and a collection of Orientl fox stories. (SPL II 316)

April - Awarded Guggenheim fellowship (SPJ April 23).

Reading Sanskrit poetry in translation and books on Buddhism. Collecting fox stories. (SPL II 308).

Reading at Folk Lore library. (SPL II 440).

Summer - touring N. America by car.

Exercises in meditation and invocation. Had been pursuing Cabalistic and Hermetic interests. for some time (UU 41)

Sept - Yaddo Artists’ Colony for 11 weeks. Meets Chou Wen-Chung, agrees to collaborate on Bardo Thodol by writing the libretto .

Dec - Returns to England on SS United States (New York to Southampton). (Heptonstall, Yorkshire)

Reviews: Weekend in Dinlock, Segal.

1960

March - Lupercal

Writing Recklings and Wodwo poems and Radio plays

Wodwo ‘a descent into destruction of some sort’ ( UU 205)

‘The Caning’, ‘Very fine, very difficult’(SPJ N ov. 15), ‘The Rainhorse’, ‘Sunday’, ‘Snow’, ‘The Harvesting’ (stories)

Writing and rewriting Bardo Thodol libretto (unperformed). Setting: Chou Wen-Chung .

Dreams of The Wound action and text. (ABC interview 1976)

Feb - Move to London (3 Chalcot Sq. Primrose Hill)

Feb - Reading at Oxford Poetry Society (BF 184)

March - Using Merwins’ study

March - Hawk in the Rain wins Somerset Maughan award (SPLH March 24)

March - Lupercal wins Hawthornden Prize (SPLH March 27)

April 1 - Frieda Rebecca born

May 4 - Dinner at T.S. Eliot’s. Meets Stephen Spender and his wife Natasha Litvin.(SPL II 469)

May 8 - BBC - reading a selection of poems

May - Meets Alan Sillitoe and his wife, Ruth Fainlight (BF 213)

June - Cocktail party at Fabers, photograph with Faber Poets (SPLH June 24), ‘Duk-dam charm to call fools in a circle’ (ABC interview 1976)

June - Poetry reading at the ICA, London.

July 9 - BBC accepts House of Aries (SPLH July 9)

July 29 - BBC - The Rain Horse (story)

Nov. 10 - BBC - The Odyssey Book V, Hughes’ translation of Homer, read by Patrick Garland

Nov. 16 - BBC - The House of Aries (play broadcast)

Dec. 2-4 - Staged reading of House of Aries at The Poets Theatre, Cambridge, Mass. (SPJ II 523)

Dec. 17 - BBC - The Harvesting (story)

1961

April - Meet my Folks!

Aug - pamphlets for BBC - broadcasts Listening and Writing

Aug - Dully Gumpton’s College Courses. ‘Theology’ "a more concentrated and natural kind of poetry… "(UU 211)

Aug - ‘The Wound’ written, ‘a Celtic-Gothic Bardo Thodol ‘ (ABC interview 1976)

‘Miss Mambrett and the Wet Cellar’ (story)

Jan - Thom Gunn to dinner (SPLH Jan 1)

Jan. 31 - BBC - Two of a Kind, Ted Huges and Sylvia Plath, interview

Feb - Sylvia Plath miscarries

17 July - Reading (Poetry at the Mermaid Theatre, London)

Aug - Sells lease on London flat to Wevills. Move to Devon (Court Green)

Sept. 6 - BBC - Meet My Folks!

Sept/Oct - BBC - Talks for Woman’s Hour, ‘Listening and Writing’ on ‘Fire’, ‘Air’ ‘Earth’ ‘Water’

November - Reading of 'The Calm' at The Poets' Theatre, Cambridge, Mass.

Selector for Poetry Book Society Choice.

Reviews: Lochness Monster , Dinsdale; Living Free, Adamson; The Cat in the Hat Comes Back , Seuss; Barnaby and the Horses , Pender; Timba , Gringolo , Koenig.

1962

May - Selected Poems with Thom Gunn

April - Leonard Baskin (Introduction)

Gaudete - begun as a film script (UU 123)

The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, Andreas. ‘… for over a year [this] became my prime source of inspiration’ (BBC TP, 1963)

Jan 17 - Nicholas Farrar born

Feb - BBC - The Wound (play produced)

Feb - Interest in shamanic dismemberment, Bacchae and Orphic myths (BF 320). Reading Nietzsche.

March 30 - BBC Home (Schools)- Reading Meet My Folks!

Meets Anthony Thwaite and Eric White to discuss Poetry Book Summer Selection Choice selection.

May 31 - BBC - The Poetry of Keith Douglas (talk and reading)

May - David and Assia Wevill visit Court Green. Ted and Sylvia sell daffodils. (SPLH May 14)

June 29 - BBC - Creatures of the Air. Unpublished

June - Beekeeping (SPLH June 15)

June - ‘The Poetry of Keith Douglas’ (essay)

July - Reading for Critical Quarterly, Bangor, Wales (BF 251)

Sept - Ted and Sylvia agree to a separation. Ted moves to London.

BBC - (school broadcasts, talk, poems, stories)

Introductions: The Little Prince , St. Exupéry; Tarka the Otter , Williamson; The Worst Journey in the World , Cherry-Garrard.

Reviews: The Nerve of some Animals, Froman. Man and Dolphin , Lilly; Primitive Song, Bowra; One Fish Two Fish , Seuss; The Cat’s Opera , Dillon; The Otter’s Tale , Maxwell; Animals of the Forest , Vérité; Close-up of a Honeybee , Foster; Oddities of Animal Life , Roberts; Imitations, Lowell; Anthology of W. African Folk-lore , Jablow; Everyman’s Ark , Johnson; Here Come the Elephants , Goudey;

1963

Nov - How the Whale Became (fables)

Nov - The Earth-Owl and other Moon People

Jan - Here Today , (Introduction)

May - Five American Poets (Ed)

Sept - ‘The Rock’, (The Listener )

Jan. 8 - BBC - Snow (story)

Jan. 24 - BBC - Interviewed by Anthony Thwaite about his plays for radio

Jan. 21 - BBC -Difficulties of a Bridegroom (play based on The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, ‘words, music and pictures… the interest is in imagery and mood’ (BBC TP, 17 October 1965); ‘a tribal dream’ (UU 212)

Feb - Sylvia Plath dies

Sept. 11 - BBC - The Rock (talk about his early life)

Sept - ‘The Poetry of Keith Douglas’ (essay)

Oct. 28 - BBC - Earth-Owl and Other Moon Creatures (reading)

Oct - ‘Ten Poems by Sylvia Plath’ (introduction)

Nov - ‘The Rat Under the Bowler" (essay)

BBC - (interviews, poems, talks)

Reviews: I Said the Sparrow , West; The World of Men , Baldwin; Rule and Energy , Press; Vagrancy , O’Connor; Emily Dickinson’s Poetry , Anderson; Folktales of Japan , Seki; Folktales of Israel , Noy.

1964

April - Nessie the Mannerless Monster

Jan - ‘The Howling of Wolves’

Feb - Selected Poems, Keith Douglas (Ed): (Introduction)

March - ‘The Suitor’ (story)

Writing Eat Crow (UU 212)

‘Dice’ (poem in 8 parts)

14 August - Postcard to Leonard Baskin: ‘The Book of Crow is in the egg’. (discovered 2013 by Peter Fydler in the British Library Hughes–Baskin Papers. Vol. I. 1958-1972 Add.Ms.83684)

Gaudete finished

Jan. 23 - BBC - Voss (talk about Patrick White’s book. Published in The Listener:71. 6 Feb 1964)

Jan. 28 - Accepts an invitation to become a member of the Poetry Panel of The Arts Council of Great Britain.(V & A, Arts Council Archive)

Awarded lecturer’s salary at University of Vienna for 5 years, by Abraham Woursell Foundation (PR 62)

Feb. 12 - BBC - Dogs: A Scherzo (play produced)

April 10 - BBC - The Worst Journey in the World by Cherry-Garrard (talk about Cherry Garrard’s book)

April 26 - BBC - Zbigniew Herbert (reading of Herbert’s poems)

May 9 - BBC - Nessie the Mannerless Monster (reading)

Nov. 21 to Dec. 30 - BBC - The Coming of the Kings (play produced)

Reviews: Voss , White; Myth and Religion of the North , Turvielle-Petre; The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen , Day Lewis; Selections of African Prose , Whiteley; The Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankole , Morris; Somali Poetry , Andrzejewski and Lewis; The Three Christs of Ypsilanti , Rokeach; Letters of Alexander Pushkin , Shaw; Astrology , MacNeice; Ghost and Divining-rod , Lethbridge / Shamanism , Eliade; The Sufis , Shah (probably written in 1962, see Bitter Fame p. 320); Mysterious Senses , Dröscher; Heimskringla , The Prose Edda , Sturlson; Gods, Demons and Others , Narayan.

1965

March - Ariel , Sylvia Plath, (Ed)

June - Eat Crow (play) (parts of Difficulties of a Bridegroom)

Autumn - Modern Poetry in Translation (Editorial)

Autumn - ‘The Tiger’s Bones’ (play); ‘Beauty and the Beast’(play)

October - Letter to Leonard Baskin: ‘Book of Crow has developed… Are you still interested in a brief series of Crow adventures?’ (discovered 2013 by Peter Fydler in the British Library Hughes–Baskin Papers. Vol. I. 1958-1972 Add.Ms.83684)

The Crow poems were begun at request of Baskin to accompany drawings. (Scigaj, L. Form and Imagination (1986) p.144).(UU 97).
‘… mostly they wrote themselves quite rapidly, the story was a sort of machine that assembed them’. (UU 207)

Jan - ‘Sylvia Plath’ (note on Ariel)

Feb. 17 - BBC - Eat Crow (extract)

March 3 - Alexandra Tatiana Eloise Wevill (Shura) born

April - The Genius of Isaac Belshevis Singer’ (essay)

June 17 - BBC - ‘Stealing Trout on a May Morning’ (introduction and reading)

June/July - Attends the Festival dei Due Mondi. Spoleto.

Sept. 3 - BBC 3 – Reading 3 poems at ’Poets in Public‘, Edinburgh Festival.

Sept. 30 - ‘The House of Donkeys’ (re-telling of Japanese folk-tale)

Oct. 17 – BBC – Reading ‘Ghost Crabs’, ‘Waking’, ‘Gog III’ from play - Difficulties of a Bridegroom – ‘ my Alchemical Marriage ’ (Letter to Ben Sonnenberg, Summer. 1965)

Nov. 22 - BBC - ‘The Brother’s Dream’, (reading)

Nov. 22 to Dec. 3 - BBC - The Tiger’s Bones ; Beauty and the Beast (plays produced)

Reviews: Faber Book of Ballads , Hodgart; Men who Marched Away , Parsons; Literature Among the Primitives , T he Primitive Reader , Greenaway.

BBC - (poetry readings, talks)

1966

Oct - The Burning of the Brothel (LE 300)

Founded and helped to organise, together with Patrick Garland and Charles Osborne, the first big Arts Council International Poetry Festival, which took place in 1967. Reading with Auden and Neruda. (PR 73)

Summer - ‘Vasco Poppa’ (essay)

Sept. 22 - BBC - The Price of a Bride (play produced)

Oct. 24 - BBC - The Poetry of Vasco Poppa ( talk)

Autumn - On The Chronological Order of Plath’s Poems (notes)

Reviews: Dylan Thomas Letters, Fitzgibbon

BBC - (poetry reading, talks)

1967

Jan - Recklings (LE 150)

April - Scapegoats and Rabies (LE 400)

May - Wodwo ‘a descent into destruction of some sort’ (UU 205)

Aug - Animal Poems (LE 100)

Dec - Poetry in the Making (texts of broadcasts)

‘Gravestones’ (BS) (LE 40)

First Crow poems published: ‘Three Legends’, ‘A Battle’, ‘Lovesong’

June 6 - BBC - Wodwo (reading poems)

July 16 - BBC - Poetry International ‘67 (speaking and reading; broadsheet and programme notes)

Sept. 21 to Oct. 5 - BBC - The Head of Gold (play produced)

1968

Feb - The Iron Man (story) ‘I just wrote it out as I told it over two or three nights’ (IOS 5.9.93)

Dec - Five Autumn Songs (LE 500)

March - A Choice of Emily Dickinson’s Verse (Introduction)

July - Yehuda Amichai: Selected Poems (collaborated on trans.)

Aug - The Oedipus of Seneca (TH’s adaptation of Seneca for Peter Brook) ‘… concentrated my writing… useful in Crow’ (UU 212)

Beauty and the Beast (play)

Many Crow poems published.

March 19 - Seneca’s Oedipus (TH adaptation) performed (Old Vic)

March - The Demon of Adachigahara (libretto) Setting by Crosse, performed at Shrewsbury.

May 2 - BBC - Sean, the Fool, the Devil and the Cats (play produced)

July 8 - BBC - Isaac Rosenberg (reading Rosenberg’s poems)

Five Autumn Songs written for and read at Harvest Festival, Little Missenden.

Autumn - Reading poetry at Peacock Theatre, Dublin.

August 25 - BBC - The Battle of Aughrim (reading ‘Rappareas’, ‘Wolfhound’ and ‘Battle Hill Revisited’in a broadcast of the epic poem by Richard Murphy). Recorded in Dublin on August 3.

Dec. 12 - BBC - Yehuda Amichai (introducing and reading poems translated from the Hebrew by Assia Wevill)

The Arvon Foundation Established by John Fairfax and John Moat. ‘… I thought the scheme was unworkable’. Involved with first course in Devon and was converted. ‘I spent no small volume of time and cash on it’ (Letter to AS , Aug. 1993).

BBC - (poetry and play readings)

Reviews: Folk tales of Chile , Dawson; Hindoo Fairy Tales , Frere; The Glass man and the Golden Bird , Manning-Sanders; The Black Monkey , Hampden.

1969

Dec - Seneca’s Oedipus (adaptation)

Feb - Vasco Popa: Selected Poems (Introduction)

‘I Said Goodbye to Earth’ (BS) (LE 75) (first published Gaudete poem)

Many Crow poems published.

Feb - The New World songs commissioned (performed in 1972)

March 23 - Deaths of Assia and Shura

May 4 - BBC Television - poetry reading

Co-director of Poetry International

Oct. 3 - BBC - The Iron Man (stories and rhymes)

May 13 - Death of Hughes’ mother

Death of Sue Alliston

Awarded City of Florence International Poetry Prize

Winter - Co-Editor, with Daniel Weissbort and David Ross, of Your Environment . First issue published (see ‘Environment and Society’ on the Notes and Queries pages)

1970

March - The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar (LE 100)

March - A Crow Hymn (LE 100)

Sept - The Coming of the Kings (4 plays)

Oct - Crow: from the Life and Songs of the Crow

Oct - A Few Crows (LE 75)

Oct - Amulet (LE 1)

Aug - ‘Four Crow Poems’(BS) (LE 20)

Oct - ‘Fighting for Jerusalem’ (BS) (LE 1)

The Tiger’s Bones (play)

The House of Donkeys (part of the play)

Jan - ‘The Chronological Order of Sylvia Plath’s Poems ‘(Note in The Art of Sylvia Plath)

March - ‘Myth and Education’ I (NY publication) (essay)

Easter - The Demon Performed at the Orchard Theatre, Bideford, Devon.

May 23 - Poetry D-Day (Reading at the Roundhouse. Two Crow poems)

July 6 - BBC - Crow (introduction, and reading of two poems)

19 August - Marriage to Carol Orchard

Oct. 3 - BBC - Crow (readings)

The Rainbow Press founded by Ted and Olwyn Hughes

Dec. 30 - BBC - Crow (synopsis and readings)

Interview with Ekbert Faas (UU 197-208)

Settings of two poems performed at the Edinburgh festival. ‘King of Carrion’, ‘Eros’.

BBC - (poetry readings, talks)

Reviews: Children’s games in Street and Playground , Opie; The Environmental Revolution , Nicholson, The God Beneath the Sea , Garfield/Blishen; The Book of Imaginary Beings , Borges.

1971

March - Shakespeare’s Poem (LE 150)

April - Crow Wakes (LE 200)

April - Poems with Ruth Fainlight and Alan Sillitoe.

Nov - Eat Crow (LE 150)

Autumn Song (poster) ‘Who killed the Leaves?’

‘The Poetry of Ted Hughes’ (Sheets) (LE)

May - Fiesta Melons , Plath (Introduction) (LE 150)

Orpheus (verse play)

May - Crossing the Water , Plath (Ed)

Sept - Winter Trees, Plath (Ed. and Note)

Nov - With Fairest Flowers While Summer Lasts: Poems From Shakespeare (Ed. and Introduction) (LE 140)

Nov - A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse (Introduction) First formulation of the ‘Tragic Equation’.

Dec - ‘The Birth of Socas’ (extract from Orghast).

Jan. 29 - BBC - Orpheus (play performed). This broadcast was awarded a Japan Prize for educational content.

March 7 - Reading at the Unterberg Poetry Centre at the 92nd Street Y, New York, USA.

The Conference of the Birds ‘I wrote about 100 poems and scenarios for Peter Brook’s company to improvise with’. (Conversation with AS , 1995)

Began to look again at the Gaudete material. The underworld the ‘most interesting part’ of story narrative ‘trimmed itself down’. ( UU 214)

July-Sept. - Accompanies Peter Brook to Shiraz Festival, Persia. Orghast performed. ‘… we orchestrated the sounds… ’ (ABC interview, 1976)

Gaudete rewritten and many more poems added(UU 123)

1972

Feb - Sunday ( Story from Wodwo, separate publication by CUP)

Sept - The Coming of the Kings (script)

Oct - Selected Poems 1957 - 67

‘A Little Girl’s Angel Gaze’ (BS) (LE 50)

Nov - Orghast at Persepolis , Smith (excerpts from play; ideas, language and myth)

Works in Progress 5 (Faas Interview)

Aug/Sept - ‘The New World’ (libretto) Setting by Crosse, performed at The Three Choirs Festival (Worcester.)

Buys Moortown Farm (95 acres) and runs it with Carol and her father, Jack Orchard, who had managed a farm near Crediton. (Conversation with AS , 1995)

Nov. 13 - BBC - Prometheus on his Crag (reading)

Dec. 18 to 21 - BBC - TV The Iron Man read

Reviews: A Separate Reality , Castaneda.

1973

Nov - Prometheus on his Crag (LE 160)

July - Orpheus (play - director’s notes)

Stones: Poems by Paul Merchant (Introduction) (LE 150)

March - The Story of Vasco performed (Sadlers Wells)

"Started learning Hebrew, tentatively", Letter to Hana and Yehuda Amichai, Nov. 12 1973

Awarded Premio Internazionale Taormina Prize

1974

Feb - The Story of Vasco (libretto)

July - Sean, the Fool, the Devil and the Cats (script)

July - Beauty and the Beast (script)

Sept - Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (LE 140)

The House of Donkeys (complete play)

First Cave Birds poems published: ‘The Summoner’, ‘The Executioner’, ‘The Risen’. ‘… my starting point was the death of Socrates [and his] murder of the Mediterranean Goddess’ (Letter to AS , Nov. 1984).

March 21 - BBC - The Story of Vasco (broadcast: libretto by Hughes)

Sees Baskin bird-drawings. Begins bird drama - Cave Birds

Reads A.K.Ramanujan’s Speaking of Siva and begins to write his own vacanas, some of which will be published in the Gaudete Epilogue (1977) and in Orts (1978).

Awarded Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

1975

March - The Interrogator (LE 250) (‘A Titled Vulturess’)

March - Cave Birds (Scolar Press: LE 125)

Oct - Season Songs

May - ‘Cave Birds’ (10 poems) (Scolar Press LE 125) (written 1974 -5)

A few Gaudete poems published.

Dec - Children as Writers 2 (Foreword)

April - Reading Crow poems at Cambridge Poetry Festival ‘[Crow] an expanded story for children’ (CU recording)

May 5 - BBC - ‘Love Song’ (reading)

May 30 - Cave Birds and Lumb’s Remains performed (Ilkley Literature Festival). [ Cave Birds ]’… a mystery play of sorts’, [ Lumb’s Remains ] ‘… constitutes the Epilogue of a longish poem called Gaudete ‘ (Programme Notes)

June 23 - BBC - Cave Birds read.

1976

May - Earth Moon (LE 226)

July - Eclipse (LE 250)

Nov - Moon Whales

‘Moon Hops’ (LE 1)

Sept - Janos Pilinsky: Selected Poems (Co-Ed., Introduction)

Words Broadsheet Twenty-Five : Four Poets (‘The Virgin Knight’) (LE 200)

Feb - Death of Jack Orchard.

March 23 - BBC - Janos Pilinszki (Hughes reads some of his translations)

March - Attends Adelaide Festival (readings and interviews)

May 12 - BBC - Yehuda Amichai (Hughes reads recent work co-translated by himself and Amichai)

Becomes founding President of Farms for City Children charity.

Cambridge Book of English Verse 1939-75 , Bold (parts of an unpublished letter)

‘Myth and Education’ II (London publication) (Essay)

Arvon Foundation Conversation (Lumb Bank, Arvon Press, 1976)

1977

May - Gaudete

June - Chiasmadon (LE 185)

Aug - Sunstruck (LE 300)

June - Amen , Yehuda Amichai (Co-Translator, Introduction)

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams , Plath (Introduction, Postscript)

Aug - Platform Performance of Gaudete (National Theatre)

Sept. 6 to 13 - BBC - TH introduces and reads from Season Songs.

Second interview with Ekbert Faas (UU 208-215)

Awarded OBE

1978

Feb - Moon Bells

July - A Solstice (LE 100)

Aug - Orts (LE 200)

Oct - Cave Birds

Oct - Moortown Elegies (LE 150)

‘Moortown Elegies’ (BS) (LE 100)

‘The Head’, (story)

June - Vasco Popa: Collected Poems (Introduction)

Recording for Norwich Tapes, Critical Forum Series: … [poetry/magic] ‘is one way of making things happen the way you want them to happen’.

1979

Jan - The Threshold (LE 100)

April - Remains of Elmet (LE 180) ‘written in response to Fay Godwin’s photographs… first poems reflected my mother’s love of this area’ . The 1994 reprinting had a different aim: ‘I deliberately made this version a collection about my family’. (Conversation with AS, 1994)

April - Remains of Elmet (LE 180)

Aug - Four Tales Told by an Idiot (LE 450)

Nov - Adam and the Sacred Nine (LE 200) ‘… to conjure myself to be a bit more birdlike’ (PR 72)

Oct - Moortown

Dec - Henry Williamson (tribute) (LE 200)

Morrigu Press (BS, 3 poems) (LE 30)

‘Brooktrout’ (BS) (LE 60)

‘Pan’ (BS) (LE 60)

‘Woodpecker’ (BS) (LE 60)

‘In the Black Chapel’ (BS) (LE 1500) for V & A exhibition.

‘Wolverine’ (BS) (LE 75)

‘You hated Spain’ , ‘Salmon Taking Times’, The Earthenware Head’.

Awarded Signal Poetry Prize for Moon Bells

May 20 - ITV TH reads poems from Remains of Elmet .

Poems in All Round the Year, Morpurgo.

Dec - Tribute to Henry Williamson read at St Martin’s in the Fields

Voted best poet writing in English in small New Poetry poll ( BBC - Internet News , October 29, 1998)

August - Fishing in Iceland with Nicholas

12 Sept/28 Oct - Exhibition of ‘Illustrations to Ted Hughes Poems’ at Victoria and Albert Museum, London

1980

‘Eagle’ (BS) (LE 75)

‘Mosquito’ (BS) (LE 60)

‘Tapir’s Song’ (BS) (LE 15)

‘Sky Furnace’ (BS) (LE 150)

‘The Tigerboy’ (story)

Oct - The Reef and Other Poems , Sagar (Introduction)

New Poetry 6 (Ed.)

March 2 - BBC - Interview: comments on his early poems

May 3 - BBC - Elmet (reading nine poems from Remains of Elmet

May 10 - BBC - Moortown (reading four poems from Moortown

May 10 - BBC - Moortown (reading nine poems from Moortown

July 7 - Fishing in Alaska with Nicholas

Ted Hughes: The Unaccommodated Universe , Faas (interviews, essays, reviews collected)

The Pig Organ (libretto) . Setting, Blackford, performed (Roundhouse, London)

Nov. - Sets up and judges (with Heaney, Larkin, and Causley)The Observer/Arvon Foundation Poetry Competition.

BBC - (poetry readings)

1981

March - Under the North Star

July - A Primer of Birds (LE 250)

‘Three River Poems’ (BS) (LE 75)

‘Cows’ (BS) (LE 76)

The Way To Write , Fairfax and Moat (Introduction)

Ted Hughes: A Critical Study , Gifford / Roberts (poem and extracts from letters)

Collected Poems , Plath (Ed., Introduction)

‘In Defence of Crow’ (essay)

Death of Hughes’ father

1982

Feb - New Selected Poems 1957 - 81

July - Wolf-watching (LE 75)

‘The Great Irish Pike’ (Sheets) (LE 26)

The Rattle Bag ( Ed. with Seamus Heaney)

The Journals of Sylvia Plath (Co-Ed., Foreword)

Arvon Foundation Poetry Comp. 1980 Anthology (Co-judge, part of Intro.)

What Rhymes with Secret , Brownjohn (Foreword)

July - Awarded honorary degree from Exeter University.

Oct - Reading at the Cheltenham, Literature Festival

Reviews: Where I Used to Play on the Green , Glyn Hughes

1983

Sept - River. Sally Beamish was inspired by these poems to write Cello Concerto No.1: River, for the cellist Robert Cohen. BBC Broadcast, March 22, 2002.

‘Mice are Funny Little Creatures’ (BS) (LE 75)

‘Weasels at Work’ (BS) (LE 75)

‘Flying Insects’ (BS) (LE 75)

Modern Poetry in Translation , Weissbort (Introduction)

Awarded Signal Poetry Prize, together with Seamus Heaney, for The Rattle Bag

Fishing in Alaska with Nicholas

Attends International Festival of Authors in Toronto, Canada

1984

June - What is the Truth (’… written at the suggestion of C and M Morpurgo who run Farms for City Children’ (PBS Notes, Autumn, 1995)

The Complete Prints of Leonard Baskin (‘The Hanged Man and the Dragonfly’ - Introduction).

Where I Used to Play on the Green , G. Hughes (Introduction)

Dec. 23 - ‘Rain Charm for the Duchy’ (poem for the christening of HRH Prince Harry. The Observer)

Feb. 23 - BBC - Oedipus (Hughes’ adaptation of Seneca’s play)

Britain: The World by Itself , Perring and Press (poem and prose passage)

July 28 - BBC - A Celebration for Frances Horovitz (Hughes reads five River poems)

‘Subsidy for Poetry’ (essay)

Dec - Appointed Poet Laureate.

1985

Mokomaki (LE 50)

The Best Worker in Europe (LE 150)

Sylvia Plath’s Selected Poems (Ed.)

29 Dec - ‘ The Dream of the Lion’, ‘Little Salmon Song’, poems for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, published in The Observer

Awarded Signal Poetry Prize for What is the Truth?

45 Contemporary Poems , Turner (poem and essay)

‘Putting a value on UK’s salmon riches’ (letter)

1986

Aug - Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth

Oct - Flowers and Insects

21 April - ‘A Birthday Masque’ (poem for the sixtieth birthday of Her Majesty the Queen, published in The Times

23 July - ‘The Song of the Honey-Bee ’ (poem for the wedding of HRH Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, publised in The Daily Telegraph).

‘The Whistle’; ‘Group’; ‘Circuit’, poems by Sorescu (TH Trans.)

Jan - ITV The Iron Man, readings by Tom Baker begin

July - BBC TV, Terry Wogan Show - The Honey Bee and the Thistle, ‘The Song of the Honey-Bee’ set to music by Howard Blake, soloist: Aled Jones, Finchley Children’s Choir, Howard Blake (piano), David Snell(harp) and Gary Kettel (tubular bells).

Sept 21 - Reading at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA

Sept 22 - Reading at the Unterberg Poetry Centre at the 92nd Street Y, New York, USA.

Oct. - Platform performance of Gaudete at The Almeida Theatre, London.

William Golding , Carey (‘Baboons and Neanderthals’ - Essay)

‘Children and secretly listening adults’ (letter)

‘About the Arvon Foundation’ (notes)

Award of honorary degree from Cambridge University

1987

Aug - T.S. Eliot: A Tribute (LE 150)

Sept - The Cat and the Cuckoo (LE 2000, 250 signed)

The Cat and the Cuckoo poems and prints (LE 200 ea.) ‘… my wish was to capitalise on a character study of the creature&hellip… My model was runic knots… mnemonic quipus ‘ (PBS Notes, Autumn 1995)

The Complete Poems of Keith Douglas , Graham (Introduction)

The Singing Brink , Dooley and Hunter, (Introduction)

‘An Introduction to ‘The Thought Fox’’ (Essay)

‘To parse or not to parse’ (letter)

‘On Sylvia Plath’s biographers’ (letter)

‘No chance for fishery interests’ (letter)

‘The place where Sylvia Plath should rest in peace’ (letter)

‘Sylvia Plath: the facts about her life and the desecration of her grave’ (letter)

‘Where research becomes intrusion’ (letter)

Summer - Fishing in British Columbia, where he has an emergency appendix operation

Sept 26 - Reads ‘The Truly Great’ at the unveiling of a blue plaque on the London house occupied (1957-1965) by T.S.Eliot. Published as T.S.Eliot: A Tribute (LE) and in A Dancer to God, 1992)

1988

June - Tales of the Early World (fables)

Began writing The Iron Woman ‘… at one point I was scared by it and had to back off’ (IOS)

An Anthology of Poetry for Shakespeare , Osborne (Foreword)

First and Always , Sail (Introduction)

20 Dec - ‘Two Songs’ The first of these two poems written for HRH Princess Beatrice of York is published in The Daily Telegraph

Letters to an Editor , Fisher (includes letters from TH)

Sept. 25 - Reads ‘The Song of Songs in the Valley of Bones’ (published as ‘A Dancer to God’, 1992) as an introduction to a reading of T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Palace Theatre, London

Sept 26 - Reads ‘A Dancer to God’ at the T.S.Eliot Centenary Dinner

1989

Sept - Moortown Diary

Sept - Wolfwatching ‘doubting my powers and getting older. Of course both wolves are caged and confined’. (Conversation with AS Dec. 1994)

Writing The Goddess of Complete Being, ‘The Silence of Cordelia’

In Praise of Trout , Profumo (Foreword)

Notes on Wolfwatching (PBS Bulletin)

Nov - Visits Bangladesh for the Asia Poetry Festival

1990

Capriccio (LE 50)

Sean Hill’s Gidleigh Park Cookbook , (Foreword)

4 Aug. - ‘A Masque for Three Voices’, poem for the ninetieth birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, published in The Weekend Telegraph

Gabbioano , Pennati (Facsimile of letter from TH)

Dear (Next) Prime Minister , Astley (includes letter from TH)

Three Contemporary Poets , Dyson (includes ‘A Reply to Critics’ and excerpts form letter)

Suffers from shingles until March 1991 (THL 590-1)

Is instrumental in the inauguration of the Sacred Earth Drama Trust and its drama competition (see ‘Environment and Society’ on the Notes and Queries pages)

1991

Winning Words (Judge, and Foreword)

1992

April - Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being (prose)

June - Rain Charm for the Duchy (LE 280) and trade edition.

Sept - A Dancer to God (tribute to Eliot)

6 Feb. – ‘The Unicorn’, poem written for the forthieth anniversary of the Accession of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, published in The Daily Telegraph

Nov - Your World (Essay) (The Observer Magazine)

March 22 - BBC - Shakespeare and the Goddess (interview with Nigel Forde)

March 25 - BBC - "Ted Hughes tries to write a bright and breezy breakfast celeal advert"

March - ‘The Interpretation of Parables’ (article)

April 12 - BBC - Raincharm for the Duchy (introduction and reading)

April 5 - BBC - Shakespeare and the Goddess (interview with Clive Wilmer)

April 19 - BBC - Capriccio (Introduction and reading of four poems)

April 26 - BBC - Emily Dickinson (Hughes reads a selection of her poems)

April - ‘Shakespeare and the Goddess’ , ‘Battling Over the Bard’(reply to review)

‘Ted Hughes and the Plath estate’ (letter)

Oct - Cheltenham Literary Festival reading - ‘The Bear’

Reviews: Your World, (winning photographs UN competition.)

BBC - (poetry readings)

1993

May - The Mermaid’s Purse (LE 100) - ‘not as warm as The Cat and The Cuckoo ‘ (Conversation with AS , Oct. 93)

June - Three Books - ‘Reading your book [ Ted Hughes: The Poetic Quest ] galvanised [Fabers] into publishing Elmet , Cave Birds and River as a single volume’ (Letter to AS , Aug. 1995)

Sept - The Iron Woman (story) ‘… a myth about writing a poem’ (IOS)

‘The Reckless Head’ (BS) (LE)

Sept - Sacred Earth Dramas (Foreword)

‘The Bear’

‘The Deadfall’(story)

Working on Coleridge essay - ‘like an afterbirth of the Shakespeare work’ (Conversation with AS , Oct . 1993)

Suffers from shingles

Talks about ‘the catharsis of memorialising the dead in books’ ( IOS)

Enthusiasm for Tony Buzan’s experiments for developing brain and memory (IOS)

Oct - ‘I realise after all these years, that people don’t understand my poetry’ (Conversation with AS )

Nov 15 - Rock version of The Iron Man Directed by David Thacker, and produced by rock-guitarist Pete Townshend opens at The Young Vic, London

1994

March - Winter Pollen

July - Poetry (in Macedonian) (LE 500)

Oct - Elmet ‘I deliberately made this version a collection about my family’. (Conversation with AS, 1994)

Dec - Earth Dances (LE 250)

Nov - After Ovid , Hoffman and Lasdun (includes four versions of Metamorphoses poems)

March 1 and 2 - BBC - The Iron Woman (read by Janet McTeer and Jonathan Hyde)

Invested as Golden Wreath Laureate of the year at the Macedonia Poetry Festival in Struga

Sets aside work on Alcestis to start work on a version of the Oresteia by Aeschylus,(commissioned by the Northcott Theatre, Exeter): ‘..the best thing I have ever done. I read it and wonder how I ever did it’ (Conversation with AS Sept, 1998)

Oct 6 - Reading for Poetry Day (National Theatre) with Simon Armitage (‘The Earthenware Head’, Anniversary’, ‘The Last of the 1st/5th Lancashire Fusiliers’)

‘T.S.Eliot the Death of St. Narcissus’ (introductory note)

Dec - In London for Sacred Earth Drama Group meeting. ‘Valerie Eliot donated £10.000 to group’ (Conversation with AS)

Re. The Mermaid’s Purse - Reg Lloyd ‘disengaged from it and another illustrator found by Fabers’ (Conversation with AS )

1995

March - New Selected Poems

March - The Dream Fighter (stories)

Aug - Spring Awakening (TH’s version of Wedekind’s play)

Sept - Shakespeare’s Ovid (LE 200)

Oct - Difficulties of a Bridegroom (stories)

Oct - Collected Animal Poems (4 Books)

‘Football’ (poem strip) (LE 499)

‘Goku’ (Creation story)

Writing more Ovid and writing ‘about 100 poems about things I should have resolved thirty years ago. Should have written then, but couldn’t.’ (Conversation with AS , 1995)

Feb. - Reading at the first Bath Literature Festival

Feb. 27 - BBC Television - Last of the Dinosaurs (Read by Bill Patterson. The first of five "specially commissioned" stories, all published in The Dreamfighter and Other Creation Stories, 1995)

March 6 - BBC Television - The Gambler (story, read by Bill Patterson)

March 13 - BBC Television - Gozzie (story, read by Bill Patterson)

March 20 - BBC Television - The Dreamfighter (story, read by Bill Patterson)

March 27 - BBC Television - Camel (story, read by Bill Patterson)

April 8 - BBC - New Selected Poems (Hughes reading a selection at the Lyttleton Theatre)

March 13 - BBC - After Ovid (reading one poem)

Spring Awakening performed (Barbican) ‘… powerful and relevant to modern youth’ (Conversation with AS , Oct. 1995)

Paris Review (Spring) interview with Drew Heinz

‘Sylvia Plath: the Bell Jar and Ariel ‘ (essay)

BBC - (poetry readings)

Considering collating archive mss. Asks Keith Sagar and AS to help, but eventually decides he needs to do it himself . ‘I found something I thought I had lost’ (Conversation with AS , Aug. 1995) ‘Something which was lost, which is very interesting’ (Conversation with AS , Sept. 1997)

1996

Blood Wedding (TH ‘s version of Lorca’s play)

BBC broadcast of fragments, 8 July 2007. Full play broadcast 25 Nov. 2007, directed by Pauline Harris

A Choice of Coleridge’s Verse (Ed.)

‘I also did 25 tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses - enjoyed that. A holiday in a rest home!!’ (Letter to AS Sept. 1996)

Jan. 15 - BBC - Ovid’s Metamorphoses (reading ‘Salamacis and Hermaphrodite’ from his own versions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses )

Oct - Blood Wedding performed (Young Vic), director Tim Supple. ‘a difficult play to stage’ (Letter to AS , Sept. 1996)

1997

Tales From Ovid (TH’s versions of Ovid’s Metamorphoses). It won the Whitbread Poetry Prize of the Year)

Shaggy and Spotty (story) ‘… found in my archive… a story I told the children when they were about two and just jotted notes’ (Conversation with AS Sept ‘97)

By Heart (Ed. and Introduction). ‘… it worked for Nicholas when he was at school’ (Conversation with AS , Sept.1997)

The School Bag , (Ed. with Seamus Heaney)

Late Spring - Begins treatment for cancer

Sept - Talked about Birthday Letters : ‘… autobiographical… I chose two [publication] dates using horoscopes, April 23 or an earlier one’. Discussion of the South Bank Mind Olympics and Ted’s teaching in a similar course for the Liechtenstein Global Trust Academy. Peter Townshend’s musical version of The Iron Man being filmed in America. ‘Peter says the script is nothing like my own writing’ (Conversation with AS , Sept. 1997)

1998

Jan - Birthday Letters

Phèdra (TH’s version of Racine’s play)

Howls, Cries & Whispers (LE)

‘Did I tell you I translated the Oresteia ?’ (Letter to AS , Jan. 1998)

Version of Euripides’ Alcestis sent to Barry Rutter of Northern Broadsides (Conversation with AS , Sept. 1998)

Jan - Birthday Letters tops best seller list

Jan - Tales from Ovid wins the Whitbread Book of the Year prize

March - Tales from Ovid wins the W.H. Smith Literature Award

April 21 - BBC - Tales from Ovid (First of ten readings for The Late Book programme)

June - Adds Heracles interlude to Alcestis before sending it to Barry Rutter of Northern Broadsides

Animated version of The Iron Giant being made by Warner Bros.

Phèdra produced (Malvern Literary Festival and Almeida) director Jonathan Kent. ‘I heard one woman say ‘I wouldn’t like to be Diana Rigg and have to go through all that again tonight’. (Conversation with AS , Sept. 1998)

’Sold the farm [Moortown]’ (Letter to AS, Aug. 1998)

Oct - Birthday Letters wins Forward Prize for Poetry

Oct - Appointed member of the Queen’s Order of Merit

Award of D. Litt. from Cambridge University

Winter - Interview published in Wild Steelhead and Salmon

Ted Hughes died on Wednesday, October 28th

1999

Tales from Ovid (acting version).

The Mermaid’s Purse (trade edition)

The Oresteia (TH’s version of Aeschylus’s play)

Alcestis (TH’s version of Euripides’s play)

Broadcast BBC - 11 Nov. 2001: produced by Barrie Rutter

‘The Prophet’ (Version of Pushkin’s poem from Weissbort’s trans.)

Jan - Birthday Letters wins T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.

Birthday Letters wins the South Bank Award for Literature.

Birthday Letters wins the Whitbread Prize for Poetry and the Book of the Year prize.

April - Tales from Ovid performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan, Stratford.

The post of Children’s Laureate, founded at the instigation of Ted Hughes and Michael Morpurgo, is filled, for the first time, by Quentin Blake.

May 13 - Memorial Service at Westminster Abbey

August - The Iron Giant Brad Bird’s animated version of The Iron Man is distributed by Warner Bros.

Dec - The Oresteia performed at the National Theatre

Dec. 3 - BBC - The Oresteia (discussion of Katie Mitchell’s production at the National Theatre

2000

Opening of the archive of Ted Hughes manuscripts at Emory University, Altanta, USA.

September - Alcestis produced by Barry Rutter of the Northern Broadsides Theatre Company at Dean Clough, Halifax, Yorkshire.

2003

Ted Hughes: Collected Poems , edited by Paul Keegan.

2005

Ted Hughes: Collected Poems for Children , Illustrated by Raymond Briggs.

2007

Letters of Ted Hughes : selected and edited by Christopher Reid

2009

September - Timmy the Tug : a children’s book created by Ted Hughes and the artist, Jim Downer, in 1952

2010

March - The Dean of Westminster, John Hall, announces that Ted Hughes is to be honoured by a memorial in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

June - The British Library announces the opening of a large addition to their Ted Hughes archive.

2011

December 6 - Dedication of the Memorial to Ted Hughes in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey. Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney, unveiled the memorial stone of Kirkstone green slate, carved by Ronald Parsons with these lines from ‘That Morning’: ‘ So we found the end of our journey. So we stood, alive in the river of light Among the creatures of light creatures of light ‘.