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Richard Kell obituary

My father, Richard Kell, who has died aged 95, was a poet, composer, teacher and former Guardian reviewer – a lover of language, a wordsmith and self-described “inveterate scribbler”.

Born in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland, to Irene (nee Musgrave), a member of a merchant and hotelier family, and George Kell, a Methodist minister and missionary, Richard spent his early childhood years in India, before attending Methodist College in Belfast as a boarder.

Idyllic breaks in Cork nearly ended for Richard at the age of nine when his maternal grandfather’s car fell from a cliff during a countryside outing: boggy ground at the bottom saved Richard and the other occupants from the worst.

After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied English and French literature, Richard married Muriel Nairn in 1953, and the young couple soon emigrated to England. Richard worked as a librarian and teacher in Middlesbrough, Luton and Isleworth, west London, before becoming a senior lecturer in English and American literature at Newcastle Polytechnic in 1970, where he stayed until retiring in 1983.

Family tragedy struck in 1975 when Muriel drowned while swimming with my sisters on the Northumberland coast – and again 20 years later when my older brother, Colin, died accidentally aged 39.

Richard’s flair for poetry was evident from an early age. Pigeons was published in the Irish press when he was 18, and is widely used in UK schools to this day. Chatto and Windus published his first books, in the 1960s, at which time he also reviewed poetry for the Guardian. He became part of the vibrant north-east England poetry scene, reading his work at Morden Tower, Newcastle, contributing to IRON and Stand magazines, and co-editing Other Poetry.

His verse gave expression to his fascination with human existence, philosophy, religion, science and nature, and to his experience of personal loss and old age. He could be playful as well as serious, writing limericks and – for family and friends – personalised cross-acrostics. Thanks to a lasting sharpness of mind, his work continued to be published by John Lucas’s Shoestring Press into his early 90s, and he was still composing new verse on his deathbed.

Richard’s creativity extended beyond poetry to music composition. His pieces were performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and – under the pseudonym Alec Richard – the Liverpool Philharmonic. His archive, held by Newcastle University and containing unpublished philosophical and fictional writings, testifies to the range of his inspiration and work.

He is survived by three children, Carolyn, Shelagh and me, four grandchildren and a great-grandchild.