The poet Philip Larkin spent many holidays in Haydon Bridge in the flat, 1A Ratcliffe Road, owned by a girlfriend Monica Jones. According to Andrew Motion’s biography, they ‘lazed, drank, read, pottered around the village and amused themselves with private games. The place always cheered them both up’. ’As always, the place worked its spell’, wrote Larkin.
Owned by Miss Jones, it was a secret ‘Rabbit hole’ for the couple. Villagers tell of the impressive figure of Monica, in her long black cloak, striding down Church Street on arrival from the railway station to her riverside cottage holiday home. She bought the property in 1961 and used it until 1984, when she went to live with Larkin in Hull, but kept it until 1991. Larkin died December 2, 1985, aged 65 in Kingston On Hull.
When he visited the property in April of 1962, he wrote:-“I thought your little house seemed … distinguished and exciting and beautiful … it looks splendid, and it can never be ordinary with the Tyne going by outside …a great English river drifting under your window, brown and muscled with currents!”
His notable poem ‘Show Saturday’ is a description of the 1973 Bellingham show in the North Tyne valley. He refers to Haydon Bridge and its California Gardens allotments in the poem:-
“Back now to private addresses, gates and lamps
In high stone one-street villages, empty at dusk,
And side roads of small towns (sports finals stuck
In front doors, allotments reaching down to the railway);
Back now to autumn, leaving the ended husk
Of summer that brought them here for Show Saturday.”
In 1982, Monica retired to live in Haydon Bridge. Larkin called her ‘Bun’, a Beatrix Potter allusion, and both called 1A Ratcliffe Road her ‘Rabbit Hole’. Larkin was fond of animals, particularly rabbits; they were also Monica’s favourite animal. She often asked to see the pet rabbits of the Willis family next door. On one occasion, Larkin asked to photograph them with Monica in the back yard. When Merlin, the cat at the General Havelock pub, was locked in Monica’s cottage, Larkin drove her to Haydon Bridge to let it out.
Monica eventually died 15th February 2001, aged 78. The beneficiary of Larkin’s will, she bequeathed large sums of money to Hexham Abbey and Durham Cathedral. A Larkin/Jones Blue Plaque was unveiled at 1A Ratcliffe Road on Tuesday 26th August 2014
For more on this and the couple in Haydon Bridge, see Dennis Telford’s book ‘Dearest Bun …’