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The Collected Poems Of Humphrey Moore
John Bridgen (53-58) writes:
It is a great joy to me to be given this opportunity to put a notice in the Old Clayesmorian Newsletter about my book. I am absolutely delighted to hear that a review will be appearing in the next issue. First of all, a few words about why I wrote the book: I wrote it because I believe that Humphrey was a most remarkable man - an outstanding teacher and a wonderful poet. He was the biggest single positive influence on my life. I wrote the book with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. It is my testimony to his life and his work and his poetry. Humphrey wanted me to publish his poetry. And I want his poetry to be known and loved. When Humphrey left me his mostly unpublished poems and his literary papers in his will I had the basic materials, together of course with my memories, for the book. My own literary enthusiasms, greatly fostered by Humphrey, naturally lent themselves to the writing of the book. I hope that Humphrey's and my mutual love of Auden and the Thirties poets, Brooke, Housman, Arnold and many other poets shines out in the book. In the years immediately following Humphrey's death very many of his main friends, about whom he had told me so much, were still alive, and it was a great joy for me to contact them and in many cases meet them and to correspond with them. And thereby I was able to amplify my account of Humphrey's life. A great deal of my book was, in fact, planned and partly written while I was living the very demanding life of a parish priest. It is not until recent years when I have been living in Cambridge in semi-retirement that I have been able to make all this material into a book. I realised when I set out to write the book that the particular kind of public school experience that I and my generation at Clayesmore had known was never going to be repeated. The world was changing rapidly and radically from the sixties onwards. And I felt that something unique that we had known should be recorded. I try in fact to set my biography throughout in the context of the times through which Humphrey lived. And it gives a record of a very significant epoch in Clayesmore's history - an epoch, which though it is past is in vital connection with today and with all that Clayesmore stands for and has always stood for. But my memoir does not in any sense attempt to give a history of Clayesmore while Humphrey was there. Its emphasis is more personal. I hope that it says a good deal that is significant about Clayesmore and indeed about the public schools and education in general. But it is above all a memoir of Humphrey the man. It tells the story of his public school odyssey that led him to Clayesmore. It tells how Clayesmore became the centre of his life. It tells of his many friendships. And it tells of what his friendship meant to me.
Many who read this book will not have known the subject of my book. Here is some basic information about Humphrey Moore (1913~-1968). He taught for thirty years at Clayesmore during which time he was master in charge of Biology. The School's laboratory is of course named after him. He remained a bachelor. For eighteen ears he was Housemaster in charge of the largest House in the school. Before coming to Clayesmore in1938 he taught at Dauntsey's and Shrewsbury. His own public school education at Bradfield had been highly important to him. His father had been Chief Inspector of Schools for Somerset, where Humphrey's idyllic childhood was mostly spent. The public school was the very life blood in his veins. I believe that he was in many ways an archetypal public school figure and something too of a prophetic figure during a highly significant and transitional era in the life of the public schools. He was utterly devoted to Clayesmore for which he had utopian feelings. And to the boys he taught, whom he treated as his friends and equals, he gave of himself unstintingly and selflessly.
Humphrey's poetry deserves to be published and to be known. The book's primary intention is to publish the poems. The memoir was written to give a picture of the remarkable and very private man (very few people in the schools where he taught even knew that he wrote poetry) who wrote them. In some ways it is remarkable that he even had the time to write them at all so extremely active was his life both in term and holiday. But they were the kind of poems that had to be written. They were a vital part of his life and his living.
I hope that Humphrey lives in my book. All who knew him will hear him speaking in the poems - both seriously and in some poems humorously. I hope that he also lives in the memoir. And that there too something of his vitally essential sense of humour is felt. There are very many Old Clayesmorians in whom his educational legacy lives on, especially in their indebtedness to his incomparable ability to communicate his passionate enthusiasms: natural history, music and poetry. I believe that my book will sound many echoes for them. And I hope that those who read the book but didn't actually know him will feel that they do encounter him as a living individual in the book.
The Lutterworth press have presented the book to us in a lovely format. The quality of the production, the photographs and the overall presentation make it a bibliophile's joy.
My book, giving both the collected poems and an account of their author's life, tells a remarkable and moving story. Humphrey gave most of his teaching life to Clayesmore and my book, through its account of his time at the school, can join, I hope worthily, that select group of books in which Clayesmore very largely features. I hope that all of you, both men and women who love Clayesmore, will add a copy of this book to your collection of Clayesmore books. I believe that Clayesmore can be proud to have its own poet. I hope that this book will be an inspiration to Clayesmorians.
The Collected Poems of Humphrey Moore with a memoir by John ~Bridgen.
A 228 page hardcover book with photographs. Published by the Lutterworth Press, P.O. Box 60, Cambridge, CB1 2NT Copies can be ordered from the publishers. Price £27.50 For Old Clayesmorians, £18 including postagc and packaging .
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