Another of the seminal figures of post-war British poetry, Christopher Logue, has died at the weekend aged 85. The importance and enduring worth of his Iliad versions can hardly be over-stated, but his Selected Poems (Faber) equally shows a varied and lively intelligence at work, never content to stick with one style or tone.
He also lead a colourful, chequered life, as his highly readable autobiography Prince Charming (also Faber) details. Many of his adult years were passed in Notting Hill, just up the road from where I live, in Denbigh Close (just off Portobello Road). He bought his house for a song back in the 50s when - believe it or not - Notting Hill was a shabby, working-class district and a "mews" still denoted its earlier sense of a row of stables, with living quarters above.
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