News at Eleven: Yet from "The Less Deceived" onwards,

[Philip] Larkin was a master of observation. His mature work is not only a record of his own soul, it's a record of post-war Britain. He immortalises bedsits, M&S, posters for Welsh seaside resorts, "Canals with floatings of industrial froth", "mug-faced middle-aged wives/Glaring at jellies". He'd gone from woolly to precise--and from wan to funny. What, or who, had opened his eyes?

A clue may lie in his Selected Letters

from The Telegraph: Philip Larkin: the Complete Poems ed by Archie Burnett: review

~~~~~~~~~~~