hedgehog thatsparked grief
"The mower stalled, twice, kneeling, I found
“A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass.”
The poet Philip Larkin’s brief and bloody encounter with a hedgehog was immortalised in the 1979 poem The Mower.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdThe creature which inspired one of his last great poems is captured in a colour snap on display, as it snuffled at a saucer in Larkin’s garden in Newland Park.
Dr Osborne said: “It is believed to be the same hedgehog. Larkin started putting out food and it added to his upset when he accidentally killed it. Monica Jones described him as howling with grief.”