Dear Keith,
Reading this latest collection of poems, I was very struck with the accuracy of Michael Standen's assessment. Your work really does have its roots in the traditions of the Tyneside music hall. There is that same cheeky, irreverence in poems like the Department of Poetry and Outside Your Lonely Window that you find in the best of Joe Wilson. It's an irreverence that has a fine edge of anger and contempt - "we may not be so happy through the day."
Interesting that you had that in common with Jack, whose experience of the Tyneside music hall and Jimmy Learmouth, its greatest comic, inspired Kiddar's Luck.
Obviously, I was drawn to the Common/Orwell poems, but I found other delights. I particularly loved Old Stations your homage to the old line to Riccarton Junction - far more moving than Betjeman's efforts with similar themes.
It's a collection of works to be proud of.
Congratulations.
John Mapplebeck (Bewick Films)
