Stanley Middleton, Plaque & Poems

On August 1^st it will be 100 years since the birth of Stanley Middleton.

To mark the centenary and celebrate Middleton’s contribution to Nottingham literature there is to be a plaque placed on the front of his former home on Caledon Rd in Sherwood. Money for the plaque is coming from donations to a crowdfunding page. A stretch target is aiming to provide copies of a special centenary book, Poetry and Old Age: Stanley Middleton's Selected Poems to Nottinghamshire libraries. This will be the first collection of Middleton’s poetry and it would be great to get the book into as many Notts libraries as possible so please visit the crowdfunding page before May 29th.

Stanley Middleton was a proper Nottingham novelist. Unlike many of our writers he lived here all his life (the war aside), and set most of his novels here, until his death at 89. From the age of 39 he penned about a book a year. For much of this time he continued to work as a schoolteacher. My own father, a former student at High Pavement, enjoyed his English lessons off Mr Middleton.

Nottingham’s only Booker Prize winner, Middleton often wrote about middle class characters whose concerns allowed him to explore humanity and its universal themes. Please contribute to the crowdfunding page. If you’ve not read Middleton before you might try one these, a selection of ten of his best books, all of which can be ordered from Notts library services:

Harris’s Requiem (1960)

Holiday (1974)

Cold Gradations (1972)

Brief Garlands (2004)

Her Three Wise Men (2008)

Married Past Redemption (1993)

Valley of Decision (1985)

A Cautious Approach (2010)

In a Strange Land (1979)

Two Brothers (1978)