Editing Ted Hughes (section)

===Early life===
[[File:Ted Hughes Birthplace.jpg|left|thumb|Hughes's birthplace in [[Mytholmroyd]], Yorkshire]]
Hughes was born at 1 Aspinall Street, in [[Mytholmroyd]] in the [[West Riding of Yorkshire]], to William Henry (1894–1981) and Edith (née Farrar) Hughes (1898–1969).<ref>
{{cite web
|url=http://ann.skea.com/THHome.htm
|title=Ted Hughes Homepage
|publisher=ann.skea.com
|access-date=30 September 2008
}}
</ref> He was raised among the local farms of the [[Calderdale|Calder Valley]] and on the Pennine moorland. The third child, Hughes had a brother Gerald (1920–2016),<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/08/15/gerald-hughes-brother-of-ted--obituary/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/08/15/gerald-hughes-brother-of-ted--obituary/ |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Gerald Hughes, brother of Ted – obituary|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=15 August 2016|access-date=1 December 2018|via=www.telegraph.co.uk}}{{cbignore}}</ref> who was ten years older.<ref name="Bellp4">Bell (2002) p.&nbsp;4.</ref> Next came their sister Olwyn Marguerite Hughes (1928–2016), who was two years older than Ted. 

One of their mother's ancestors, [[Nicholas Ferrar]], had founded the [[Little Gidding community]].<ref name="NDB">{{cite ODNB |last=Sagar |first=Keith |chapter=Hughes, Edward James (1930–1998) |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-71121 |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/71121 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |access-date=9 May 2020 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Most of the more recent generations of the family had worked in the clothing and milling industries in the area. 

Hughes's father, William, a [[Joinery|joiner]], was of Irish descent.<ref>Paul Bentley, ''Ted Hughes, Class and Violence'', 2014, pp.&nbsp;63 and 64.</ref><ref>Gerald Hughes, "Ted and I: A Brother's Memoir", 2014, p.&nbsp;4.</ref> He had enlisted with the [[Lancashire Fusiliers]] in the [[First World War]] and fought at [[Ypres]]. He narrowly escaped being killed; he was saved when a bullet hit him but lodged in a pay book in his breast pocket.<ref name="NDB"/> He was one of just 17 men of his regiment to return from the [[Gallipoli Campaign|Dardanelles Campaign]] (1915–16).<ref>{{cite book| last = Sagar| first = Keith| title = The Achievement of Ted Hughes| year = 1983| publisher = Manchester University Press| isbn = 978-0-7190-0939-6 | page = 9 }}</ref> 

The stories of [[Western Front (World War I)|Flanders fields]] filled Hughes's childhood imagination (later described in the poem "Out").<ref name="Sagar6"/> Hughes noted, "my first six years shaped everything".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ann.skea.com/timeline.htm|title=Ted Hughes Timeline – publications, life-events etc.|access-date=11 April 2017}}</ref>

Hughes loved hunting and fishing, swimming, and picnicking with his family. He attended the Burnley Road School until he was seven. After his family moved to [[Mexborough]], he attended Schofield Street Junior School.<ref name="NDB"/> His parents ran a newsagent's and tobacconist's shop in the town.<ref name="Bellp4"/>  

In ''Poetry in Making'', Hughes recalled that he was fascinated by animals, collecting, and drawing toy lead creatures. He acted as retriever when his elder brother gamekeeper shot [[Eurasian magpie|magpies]], owls, rats, and [[Eurasian curlew|curlews]]. He grew up amid the harsh realities of working farms in the valleys and on the moors.<ref name="Sagar6">Sagar (1978), p.&nbsp;6.</ref>  

During his time in Mexborough, he explored Manor Farm at Old [[Denaby]]. He later said that he came to know it "better than any place on earth". His earliest poem "The Thought Fox", and earliest story "The Rain Horse", were recollections of the area. At the age of about 13 a friend, John Wholey, took Hughes to his home at Crookhill Lodge, on the Crookhill estate above [[Conisbrough]]. There the boys could fish and shoot. Hughes became close to the Wholey family and learnt a lot about wildlife from Wholey's father, the head gardener and [[gamekeeper]] on the estate. Hughes came to view fishing as an almost religious experience.<ref name="NDB"/>

Hughes attended [[Laurel Academy|Mexborough Secondary School (later Grammar School)]], where a succession of teachers encouraged him to write, and develop his interest in poetry. Teachers Miss McLeod and Pauline Mayne introduced him to the poets [[Gerard Manley Hopkins]] and [[T.S. Eliot]]. Hughes was also mentored by teacher John Fisher, and his own sister Olwyn, who was well versed in poetry.<ref name="NDB"/><ref name="Sagar7"/> Future poet [[Harold Massingham]] also attended this school and was mentored by Fisher. In 1946, one of Hughes's early poems, "Wild West", and a short story were published in the grammar school magazine ''The Don and Dearne''. He published further poems in 1948.<ref name="Bellp4"/> By 16, he had no other thought than being a poet.<ref name="NDB"/>

During the same year, Hughes won an open [[exhibition (scholarship)|exhibition]] in English at [[Pembroke College, Cambridge]], but chose to do his [[national service]] first.<ref>Keith M. Sagar (1981). ''Ted Hughes'' p.&nbsp;9. University of Michigan</ref> His two years of national service (1949–1951) passed comparatively easily. Hughes was stationed as a ground wireless mechanic in the [[Royal Air Force|RAF]] on an isolated three-man station in east Yorkshire. During this time, he had little to do but "read and reread Shakespeare and watch the grass grow".<ref name="Bellp4"/> He learnt many of the plays by heart and memorised great quantities of [[W. B. Yeats]]'s poetry.<ref name="NDB"/>