Philip and Sydney: A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

In 'This be the Verse', the poet Philip Larkin famously bemoans the impact parents have on their children. In `Philip and Sydney', playwright, translator and screenwriter Alan Pollock uncovers some of the reasons why Larkin may have had such a profound sense of anguish. In 1937, Philip Larkin's father, Sydney, took him on holiday to Germany. Sydney was Coventry's City Treasurer and had a keen interest in the Nazi regime. It was a holiday that Philip never spoke of. But, taking inspiration f...