News

Richard Caddel: poet, publisher and librarian

(2 April 2003)

University staff have learned with sadness of the death of their former colleague, Richard Caddel, poet and prime mover in setting up the University of Durham Basil Bunting Poetry Centre.

Dr John Hall, University Librarian, head of all the Library services, paid tribute to Ric Caddel and spoke of his distinguished contribution to library work. Dr Hall said: “He served the university particularly well in making British government and European Community publications more accessible to users, and enhanced the status of Durham's European Documentation Centre through his tireless work with the European Community. He was for several years the University's copyright co-ordinator and brought a commonsense approach to this rather complex area.”

Ric and his work on European documentation at a national and international level were well known by colleagues at home and abroad. His contribution was recognised by the European Information Association's Helen Greer Award in 1994.

The other great area of his work was the Basil Bunting Poetry Archive, established in 1988 in the University Library, and the Basil Bunting Poetry Centre associated with it. Ric continued as Co-Director of the Centre after retiring in 2000 as an Assistant Librarian in the Library, where he had worked since 1972.

The Centre fosters study and research on Northumbrian poet Basil Bunting, and on poets associated with him through the region, or on the modernist/post modernist tradition. The Centre also continues to promote the practice of "live" poetry reading which Bunting championed, and gives support to the development of the Bunting Archive. The material is held in Durham University Library's Archives and Special Collections at Palace Green. The collection, formally opened by the University’s then Chancellor, Dame Margot Fonteyn, includes manuscripts, printed material, photographs, recordings and films relating to Bunting.

Among his own literary interests and accomplishments, Ric was the editor of Pig Press from 1972 to 2001, and served on the Editorial Board of the journal Sagetrieb. He was co-editor of the anthology Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970. and author of several collection of poems, including Magpie Words: Selected Poems 1970-2000 , published by West House Books..

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Further information:
www.dur.ac.uk/basil_bunting_poetry.centre/
Keith Seacroft, Head of Public Relations, University of Durham 0191 334 6074