This morning Pembroke College, Cambridge announced their acquisition of a major new resource for the study of the life and work of Ted Hughes in the form of the Barrie Cooke Archive. This collection of letters, photographs, artworks and unpublished poems is the result of the remarkable friendship between Hughes, Seamus Heaney and the British-born Irish painter, Barrie Cooke.
Ted Hughes and Barrie Cooke afloat, pike fishing in Ireland, 1978/9. Credit: Aoine Landweer-Cooke.
The wealth of this material for Hughes studies is immediately apparent from the College’s press-release:
Highlights from Ted Hughes’ pen include 25 vivid letters, written over a span of 30 years, a poem entitled ‘Trenchford on Dartmoor’ written for Cooke and his wife, and a sketch entitled ‘The Dagda meets the Morrigu on the Unshin near Ballinlig’, which offers a wonderful angler’s retelling of Irish mythology. Like the letters, it speaks volumes about fatherhood, writing, fishing and friendship.
Ted Hughes cartoon of the Morrigu eating the Dagda, plus marginal notes and poem ‘Trenchford on Dartmoor’ (1990–92), in the guest book of Barrie Cooke and Jean Valentine. Also poems inscribed by Dennis O’Driscoll and Julie O’Callaghan. Credit: The Estates of Ted Hughes and Dennis O’Driscoll and of Julie O’Callaghan. Photograph by Mark Wormald.
Particularly exciting is the way in which this archive will illumine the centrally important relationship between Hughes and Heaney through their friendship with Cooke.
1 Jan 1985, Black Rock, Dublin. Picture credit Dennis O’Driscoll, reproduced with permission of Estate of Dennis O’Driscoll.
Mark Wormald, English Fellow at Pembroke and Editor Emeritus of The Ted Hughes Society Journal observes:
The tenderness of the letters between these men takes my breath away, and it transforms what we know about their work and personal lives. Ted Hughes emerges as an absolutely devoted father, a wonderfully generous friend, and someone who lived and breathed nature through fishing. And Cooke’s influence on Seamus Heaney, as an artist who was completely committed to the natural and mythological history of Ireland’s waters, was real and enduring, as was the nourishment Heaney took from their friendship.
More insight into the wealth of the new archive can be glimpsed in this short video which Pembroke has produced.
The first public access to the material will be through an exhibition at Pembroke College in 2022, and the archive will be open for scholarship pending cataloguing.
For more information, see the University of Cambridge website.
UPDATE: Pembroke’s announcement has drawn a range of well-deserved media attention in Britain and Ireland. More discussion of the Barrie Cooke Archive can be found below
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54906863
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/feral-friend-taught-heaney-hughes-art-wildness/
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2020/1113/1178047-seamus-heaney-ted-hughes-and-the-barrie-cooke-archive