A strange change from Major to minor (poet)
The poetry of John Major, eh. Now there’s a tantalising prospect. What next? The love songs of Edward Heath? A few days ago, Sir John gave a lecture at Churchill College, Cambridge. Thanking his hosts for accepting the donation of his papers, he added: “Those that I’ve held back – personal notes, contemporary thoughts, partial diaries, even poems – will follow in due course. I hope that, taken together, these will add to knowledge, and be of use to historians.” Can poems help historians? “Poets find the things that last,” according to Holderlin, so there’s always a possibility that Sir John will do for Black Wednesday and the ERM debacle what Homer did for the Trojan War. However, the auguries aren’t good, given the clues we have to the style of Major’s poetic opera, which seems to belong to the Wisden School. Here’s the start of a piece he auctioned last year for charity: “The mellow sound of bat on ball The wherewithal to enthral On feather bed or fiery track Talent far above the p...