Philip Larkin’s letter about the Ilkley screamer

A reading of Ted Hughes’ Cave Birds at a literary festival is reported to have led to involuntary screaming by an audience member. Photograph: SIphotography/Getty Images/iStockphoto

The incident of the audience member screaming at the Ilkley festival when Cave Birds was performed (Other Lives, 18 September) is recollected by Philip Larkin in a June 1965 letter to Robert Conquest: “At Ilkley festival, a woman shrieked and vomited during a Ted Hughes reading. I must say that I’ve never felt like shrieking. We had the old crow over at Hull recently, looking like a Christmas present from Easter Island. He’s all right when not reading.” Their memorial stones lie next to each other in Poets’ Corner.
Graham Chesters
Chair, The Philip Larkin Society

• I was surprised to read that Avanti West Coast is part-owned by Trenitalia (Labour demands action over 18,000 ‘lost’ train services in north of England, 1 December). This summer, we spent two weeks travelling around Italy with Trenitalia. The service was punctual and the trains modern, clean and cheap.
Max Rathmell
Liversedge, West Yorkshire