BRIAN PATTEN -
S
ITTING IN A LIGHT ROOM LOOKING OUT OVER THE RIVER DART AT DITTISHAM, BRIAN PATTEN LAUGHS AS HE RECALLS
HOW HE, ROGER MCGOUGH AND ADRIAN HENRI – THE FABLED ‘MERSEY BEAT POETS’ OF THE 1960S - WERE DESCRIBED BY ONE CRITIC AS ‘A FLASH IN THE PAN’.
words & art
a life of ‘One hell of a flash to have lasted this long!’ he says,
‘Roger’s in his 70s now!’ About to release a new work for children, ‘The Big
Snuggle Up’ - which was inspired by winter in his Dittisham home – Brian said that he would never give up writing or being creative.
He first came to the South Hams when staying with friends in the late 1960s. He spent several years at the Sharpham Boathouse thanks to the generosity of his friends Maurice and Ruth Ash – the daughter and son-in-law of Dartington Estate owners Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst. ‘It was such a lovely surprise,’ said Brian, ‘I thought I was going to take a room in a cottage on the estate and ended up in the boathouse with the most amazing views over the Dart!’ The experience left him with only fond memories of the place – and ensured he would return. ‘I would visit often, sometimes
take a clapped out boat down the river from Sharpham – it’s a beautiful place and I slowly got to know the area and the people and made friends.’
He has lived in Dittisham with his
partner, travel writer Linda Cookson, for 12 years, and feels that he will never leave. ‘I go to other places enough that it is always a pleasure to come home,’ he says. ‘I went to the butchers to try and get a job after
leaving school, and they wouldn’t trust me with a cleaver,’ he said. ‘The butcher’s brother in law worked for the local paper in Bootle, and I got taken on to write
a music column.’ The year was 1961 and the Beatles were about to play at the Cavern Club for the first time. Soon after leaving school Brian went to a club called Streats where he met Roger McGough and Adrian Henri. ‘The club was one of Liverpool’s first poetry venues,’ said Brian. ‘Roger and Adrian were amazed when this fifteen year old kid turned up armed with poems and attitude. Within a year I’d started a magazine called Underdog which published their first poems – as well as my own of course.’ It gave a platform for poets in
His latest book was inspired by a particularly bitter winter in the South Hams a couple of years ago.
Liverpool - and it later went on to publish poems by internationally known poets, like Allen Ginsberg, who would become a friend of Brian’s a few years later. ‘At the time Liverpool wasn’t really that big, so everyone would mix together in the clubs,’ he said. ‘They were full of painters, poets, prostitutes, pushers, boxers, thieves, musicians and lovers. No one thought writing poetry was arty as long as you could communicate.’ ‘The poetry we were writing was easily accessible and different from other stuff being written at the time.
We were going against the grain, but we never really cared what was being done elsewhere, we just wanted our poetry to be understood and enjoyed.’ He nearly gave it all up - just when he was about to
leave the paper he got tired of the life he was living and applied to be part of the clown school attached to Billy Smart’s Circus – perhaps in a tragic turn of events
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