Death of a Poet Episode II: Life is Wasting, Death is Hasting

Grief pulls John Nicholson back to his family’s devout Methodism – for now – as The Bingley Byron turns the loss of his young bride into art that retains the power to console the bereaved.

Also known as The Orpheus of Bradford and The Airedale Poet, John Nicholson was a Methodist preacher and a tormented drinker, a rambler on Rombald’s Moor and a champion of industry, a conservative and a radical, a woolsorter and a classically-inclined poet.

He got arrested in London for arguing with a bust of Shakespeare; became a pawn in one of the great political scraps of the 19th century; played the oboe; fathered nine children; and ad-libbed untold quantities of rhyme for his pals in the pub, most of which has been lost to intoxication and the passage of time.

In 1993 Northern Broadsides legend Barrie Rutter brought him back to life on the stage in Tony Harrison’s play Poetry or Bust. We’ve used Harrison’s archive, held here in Cultural Collections at the University of Leeds, to retrace his steps, in the steps, in turn, of John Nicholson.

Only a brief biography on The Bingley Byron survives, but we’ve gathered a cast of poets, actors, artists, bellringers, historians, enthusiasts – and a direct descendant – to return to the poems that Nicholson did write down, and the places where he lived and died, to unearth his chaotic, charismatic story. Through his life and work, we think about art, joy, memory, grief, and what we leave behind us.

From the meadow pipits, skylarks and standing stones of Ilkley Moor to the river at Saltaire where he met his end, join us in the footsteps of The Bingley Byron.

Series credits

Presented by Dr RJ Wade

with

Paul BennettDr Adam BridgenDr Vic ClarkeFelix CryerAlex DuxburyTom DuxburyKarl GraveAllan MirfieldConrad NelsonHadley NicholsonSarah PrescottCatherine RobinsonElaine RobinsonHarold RobinsonBarrie RutterSiân ThomasDom Basil Watkins OSBGlyn WatkinsProfessor John Whale

The Bellringers of All Saints Church, BingleyJane CallaghanAnn CossavellaKarl GraveJane LynchHelen Mitchell-HallMary PickenGary PickenPeter Tedder

Hydrophone recordings made on location in the River Aire, Saltaire by Daniel Skevington