Magnetic Field
“8:25am, Holmfirth Bus Station. I am waiting for Simon Armitage. It is late autumn, a time of floods and first frosts. The river is in full, peaty spate. I stamp my feet, partly for warmth and partly to alleviate a low-level anxiety. I am unsure how a Poet Laureate is likely to arrive: on horseback, to a fanfare? Accompanied by a harlequin? The truth reveals itself on the dot of 8:30 in the form of an unmistakable fringe at the wheel of a grey Honda. After introductions that feel almost competitively mild-mannered, we begin the long climb north out of Holmfirth onto the moorlands, towards Marsden.”
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/62b308b3d622a2894fe64f479be63e052b0e3dcfafe743d6225d987742d2938b/Neil-Gower_MagneticFieldmoor.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/013013e0fda919a1c7b8171e68b0b8f9d5ca45c7897754d7505fcef815326281/Neil-Gower_MagneticFieldtown.jpg)