T.S. Eliot in Bosham

It's time for a break from Dr. Johnson for a few days. One can't read the same writer all the time, even if it's such a good one. Reading the same writer all the time, sir, is like drinking nothing but the same vintage. However fine it is, one's palate becomes accustomed to it and in due course fails to appreciate its fineness.

The reason is the arrival of The Waste Land, a biography by Matthew Hollis, so come back here next week for a report on that. Meanwhile, though, I am reminded that he stayed with Vivien in nearby Bosham, as pictured. I know exactly where that is.

It prompts the idea of a series that might be called something like Poets in West Sussex and East Hampshire. We already have Rosemary Tonks buried at Warblington. There's Edward Thomas houses at Steep. There's the book signed by John Donne in Chichester cathedral, pictured some years ago here under the John Donne label. John Keats stopped off at Bedhampton on his journey to Italy. Simon Armitage attended Portsmouth Polytechnic. There's the plaque in Chichester marking where Keats began The Eve of St. Agnes. Looking up the Eliot picture, one finds Dylan Thomas also spent some time in Bosham.

I'm sure there must be a few more.