Editing Philip Larkin (section)

===Early life and education===
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Philip Larkin was born on 9 August 1922 at 2 Poultney Road, [[Radford, Coventry]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=larkph |title=Philip Larkin © Orlando Project |publisher=Orlando.cambridge.org |date=2 December 1985 |access-date=17 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160513034249/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=larkph |archive-date=13 May 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref>  the only son and younger child of Sydney Larkin (1884–1948) and his wife Eva Emily (1886–1977), daughter of [[HM Customs and Excise|first-class excise officer]] William James Day. Sydney Larkin's family originated in [[Kent]], but had lived since at least the eighteenth century at [[Lichfield]], [[Staffordshire]], where they worked first as tailors, then also as [[Coach (carriage)|coach-builders]] and shoe-makers. The Day family were from [[Epping, Essex]], but moved to [[Leigh, Lancashire]] in 1914 where William Day took a post administering pensions and other dependent allowances.<ref>Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life, Andrew Motion, Faber and Faber, 2018, pp. 1-2</ref>

Larkin's family lived in the district of [[Radford, Coventry]], until Larkin was five years old,<ref>Motion 1993, pp. 8,10.</ref> before moving to a large three-storey middle-class house complete with servants' quarters near [[Coventry railway station]] and [[King Henry VIII School, Coventry|King Henry VIII School]], in Manor Road. Having survived the bombings of the [[Second World War]], their former house in Manor Road was demolished in the 1960s to make way for a road modernisation programme,<ref>Motion 1993, p. 10.</ref> the construction of an inner ring road. His sister Catherine, known as Kitty, was 10 years older than he was.<ref name="PL Society">{{cite web
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 |title=Philip Larkin 1922–1985 
 |publisher=The Philip Larkin Society 
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</ref> 

His father, a [[self-made man]] who had risen to be Coventry City Treasurer,<ref name="PL Society"/> was a singular individual, 'nihilistically disillusioned in middle age',<ref>Larkin, letter to Monica Jones, 7 August 1953, ''Letters to Monica'', p. 106.</ref> who combined a love of literature with an enthusiasm for [[Nazism]], and had attended two [[Nuremberg rallies]] during the mid-1930s.<ref>Bradford 2005, p. 25.</ref> He introduced his son to the works of [[Ezra Pound]], [[T. S. Eliot]], [[James Joyce]] and above all [[D. H. Lawrence]].<ref>Bradford 2005, p. 26.</ref> His mother was a nervous and passive woman, "a kind of defective mechanism...Her ideal is 'to collapse' and to be taken care of",<ref>Larkin to Monica Jones, 8 April 1955, ''Letters to Monica'', p. 148.</ref> dominated by her husband.<ref>Motion 1993, p. 11.</ref>

[[File:Spinny -Poultney Road -Coventry 28y08.jpg|right|thumb|Larkin's parents' former [[Radford, Coventry|Radford]] council house overlooking a small spinney, once their garden (photo&nbsp;2008)|alt=Larkin's parents' former [[Radford, Coventry|Radford]] council house overlooks a small spinney, once their garden. The spinney is on the corner of two roads. It is a lawn, maintained by the Coventry City Council groundsmen, with some mature trees and bushes around the perimeter as seen in 2008]]
Larkin's early childhood was in some respects unusual: he was educated at home until the age of eight by his mother and sister, neither friends nor relatives ever visited the family home, and he developed a stammer.<ref>Bradford 2005, pp. 28, 31.</ref> When he joined Coventry's King Henry VIII Junior School he fitted in immediately and made close, long-standing friendships, such as those with James "Jim" Sutton, Colin Gunner and Noel "Josh" Hughes. Although home life was relatively cold, Larkin enjoyed support from his parents. For example, his deep passion for [[jazz]] was supported by the purchase of a drum kit and a [[saxophone]], supplemented by a subscription to ''[[DownBeat]]''. From the junior school he progressed to King Henry VIII Senior School. He fared quite poorly when he sat his [[School Certificate (UK)|School Certificate]] exam at the age of 16. Despite his results, he was allowed to stay on at school. Two years later he earned distinctions in English and History, and passed the entrance exams for [[St John's College, Oxford]], to read English.<ref>Bradford 2005, p. 38.</ref>

Larkin began at Oxford University in October 1940, a year after the outbreak of the [[Second World War]]. The old upper-class traditions of university life had, at least for the time being, faded, and most of the male students were studying for highly truncated degrees.<ref>Bradford 2005, p. 39.</ref> Due to his poor eyesight, Larkin failed his military medical examination and was able to study for the usual three years.<ref>Motion, p. 72</ref> Through his tutorial partner, Norman Iles, he met [[Kingsley Amis]], who encouraged his taste for ridicule and irreverence and who remained a close friend throughout Larkin's life.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/8770871/two-angry-old-men/|title=Two angry old men – The Spectator|date=1 December 2012|publisher=spectator.co.uk|access-date=6 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130830070827/http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/8770871/two-angry-old-men/|archive-date=30 August 2013|url-status=live}}</ref> 

Amis, Larkin and other university friends formed a group they dubbed "The Seven", meeting to discuss each other's poetry, listen to jazz, and drink enthusiastically. During this time he had his first real social interaction with the opposite sex, but made no romantic headway.<ref>Bradford 2005, p. 59.</ref> In 1943 he sat his [[Final examination|finals]], and, having dedicated much of his time to his own writing, was greatly surprised at being awarded a [[British undergraduate degree classification|first-class honours degree]].<ref>Motion 1993, p. 104.</ref>