PETER WAINE – AE HOUSMAN FINDING A PATH TO FLOURISH. CHAIRED BY SAVILIAN NICK THOMAS.

AE Housman is best known for A Shropshire Lad but was also the author of other poems which are numbered among the loveliest ever penned. In addition, he was also the greatest classicist we have ever produced.

Yet Housman was a man full of contradictions, recluse and bon-viveur, friendly and rude, kind and unkind etc.

He was offered the position of Poet Laureate having published only 50 poems but declined the position. Kipling regarded him as our greatest wartime poet but he disliked patriotic poetry and had written the poems 20 years before the First World War.

He ‘ wasted ‘ 27 years translating what he admitted was a third rate Latin poet. He failed his Finals at Oxford when expected to get a First  but went on to be Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge .

Peter Waine is the Chair of the Housman Society, former chair of CPRE, of the National Fruit Collection, of the Tree Council, has been on the boards of public and private companies often as chair; a former visiting professor at Warwick and Bayes( formerly Cass) Business Schools; former trustee of the Royal Opera House and member of ICC , the governing body of world cricket. Author or co-author of two business books, a business novel, a collection of poetry, two books on the countryside, a biography of A E Housman and a lighthearted account of the livery companies of London having been Master Gardener. Former member Savile Club.  

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