News at Eleven: I had clearly pushed the right button--

not an easy feat with [Philip] Larkin--and he glowed visibly. [John] Betjeman, he said, was his favourite poet. "He is also the greatest living English poet together with T. S. Eliot. But Eliot is too obscure while Betjeman communicates directly with the general reader."

I was particularly struck by Larkin's loathing of work, including, I suspected, his job as a librarian, although he carefully did not specify this. We discussed his career and much of what he told me I included in my profile. He said that on going down from Oxford he could have taught or gone into the Civil Service.

from The Times Literary Supplement: Larkin's first interview

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