Brian Patten RIP

Brian Patten was one of the 'Liverpool scene' poets, one of the triumvirate who were published in Penguin Modern Poems #10, 'The mersey scene'. As such, he was one of my cultural idols from 1970-3 (thereabouts). As I wrote¹ way back in 2007 recalling events of 1970, Another event which I had almost forgotten took place on the penultimate day of the hike. It must have been raining very hard for we spent the night in a village infants' school as opposed to camping in our tents. The evening's activity was based around readings from the poetry book "The Mersey Sound"; to quote from this book's wiki, "The book had a magical effect on many people who read it, opening their eyes from "dull" poetry to a world of accessible language and the evocative use of everyday symbolism. It certainly opened my eyes, and when I returned home, I bought the book and commenced writing poetry.

Every year at school there was held a public speaking competition. There was never any preparation for this, but in class each person had to read a poem out loud, and on the basis of this, a representative would be chosen. Presumably it was in 1971 that I read "Where are you now, Batman" aloud and a friend read "The river arse" (an opportunity to declaim a frowned-upon word 'legally'), both written by Patten. I remember that I saw Patten with the Grimms troupe (a combination of the Bonzo Dog Do-Dah Band and The Liverpool Scene) although exactly when escapes my memory (presumably either 1971 or 1972). This was at the Victoria Rooms, a hall very near my school, where I also saw Steeleye Span and Quintessence². The school dance, winter 1972, was held there as well.

A full obituary can be read at The Guardian. This obituary must have been written well in advance (I remember reading somewhere that newspapers used to have pre-prepared obituaries so that they could immediately publish one should the subject die) as it was written by Alan Brownjohn (also a poet): a note at the end of the obituary states that Brownjohn died in 2024.

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[2] 1031

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
291	01/10/2010	Malta log #3	Holiday, Malta
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