Arvon is Britain’s leading foundation for the provision of residential writing-courses, and we should be grateful for it. Brilliantly run and guided throughout its twenty-five year history by a series of inspired and inspirational figures, it has set many writers, young and old, on the gilded path to publication.

In this slim volume, Arvon co-founder John Moat tells the story of rickety and idealistic beginnings. He pinpoints the moment Arvon came into being – it was in 1968, and ‘there was a whiff of cordite, hot from the barricades’. He and John Fairfax were ‘two young poets on the