The Edward Thomas Study Centre

 Portsmouth and its surrounding area are well served for choirs, their concerts, lunchtime piano recitals and the like but it's not everybody who can live quite so close by places associated with two of their favourite dozen poets.

Having waited patiently for summer to pass, it's suddenly time to fit in some of those days out that haven't happened yet. Next week I must return to Warblington to visit Rosemary Tonks where she is buried but The Edward Thomas Study Centre in Petersfield is another of those little places one needs to know about that make a trip worthwhile.

It's not as big as you'd quite reasonably expect but there's not an inch of space wasted and it is immacualately presented. It's more library than museum but it won't be found wanting for much in Thomas and Thomas-related literature. For the asking, one can see books signed by Thomas but, as advised by Jeremy Mitchell there, don't ever be persuaded by a book of his poems signed by Thomas because they weren't published until after his death. Not that I'd stretch to the asking price for any such thing but, as with John Donne and Auden, the Signed Poetry Books feature here will have to be glad of a photograph and accept that no such signed book will ever grace my shelves.

There isn't much to see in most towns these days now that they've become generic versions of each other with their Gregg's, charity shops and supermarkets but Petersfield retains considerable charm with its famous, labyrynthine second-hand bookshop (which didn't have any Dostoyevsky) and kindly atmosphere almost redolent of Camberwick Green but maybe it only seems like that to one like me who is attuned to the mean streets of Portsmouth.

The very fact that there is an Edward Thomas Study Centre is something to be glad of. It couldn't be called a reading room but some of us who are devoted enough to books like looking at them for their own sake in the same way that trainspotters enjoy seeing locomotives without taking a ride on them.

If I'd known there was a visitors book I might have thought of something appropriate to write in it in advance but even when I've thought of lines to say in advance I sometimes forget them in the pressure of the moment and ad lib as best I can.

Some people left and some people came.

It might not look much but the genuine Edward Thomas cognoscenti should appreciate what it is meant to mean. I hardly felt worthy of signing so soon after wit, raconteur and all-round oddball talent, Gyles Brandreth, who had attended nearby, upmarket Bedales school. I'm very glad I finally made the effort and got there. The stated objective of societies like the Edward Thomas Fellowship is to,

Perpetuate the memory of Edward Thomas and foster interest in his life and works,

and, yes, of course it is but we wouldn't want it catching on too much, would we. It's not such a bad thing that it is our own little secret so that when you meet people like Jeremy and distract him from his work it seems like you've shared something special.