Philip Larkin letters shed light on relationship with his parents

He famously began his poem ‘This Be The Verse’ with the line: ‘They f*** you up, your mum and dad’

Larkin was England’s famously provincial and sardonic poet-cum-librarian (Corbis)

Philip Larkin scholars have long believed the poet had a sticky relationship with his parents after he famously began lyric poem “This Be The Verse” with the line: “They f*** you up, your mum and dad”.

However, newly discovered letters between Larkin and his mother Eva and father Sydney suggest they shared a loving relationship.

The correspondence will be published in Philip Larkin: Letters Home 1936-1977 and editor James Booth has revealed details regarding the content of the letters.

Speaking to The Times, he described the letters as showing an “empathetic and positive relationship” between Larkin and his parents.

Booth added that the writings between them and Larkin’s sister Kitty have nearly all disappeared, adding that Kitty may have been the one with a frosty relationship with their parents.

He says there is evidence their mother gave Kitty an “inferiority complex” and Larkin thought he had “bullied Kitty into internalising his low estimation of her”.

Larkin’s literary executor Anthony Thwaite said: “I had always imagined he was rather squashed and frightened, a combination of fright and boredom.

“But in fact what comes through the letters is an extraordinarily cheeky affection.

“It is very difficult to reconcile that Philip Larkin (of ‘This Be The Verse’) with this extraordinary edition.”

Larkin was a giant of 20th century poetry. His best-known works include “An Arundel Tomb”, “Aubade” and “Annus Mirabilis”. He died aged 65 in 1985 and has a memorial in Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner, alongside Geoffrey Chaucer and Charles Dickens.