English poet and teacher Charles Causley was BOTD in 1917. Born in Launceston, Cornwall to a working-class family, his father died when he was a child from injuries sustained during World War One. He left school at 15, working as a clerk, and writing plays and stories in his spare time. During World War Two, he served in the Royal Navy, seeing active service at Gibraltar and the Pacific. After the war, he trained as a teacher, returning to Launceston, where he taught for the next 35 years. His 1951 debut poetry collection Farewell, Aggie Weston, was heavily influenced by his wartime experiences and his interest in Cornish history and folklore. He became one of the most popular poets of his generation, undertaking poetry readings and tours with the British Council and English Arts Council, presenting the BBC Radio 4 series Poetry Please, and befriending literary luminaries including Siegfried Sassoon, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin and Susan Hill. His many accolades included a Fellowship of the Royal Society of literature, the Queens Gold Medal for Poetry and a Commander of the British Empire for services to poetry. Widely tipped to become the Poet Laureate after the death of John Betjeman, he expressed relief when Hughes was appointed instead, and became known in Cornwall as “the greatest Poet Laureate we never had”. Discreetly gay, he never came out in his lifetime, and little is known about his intimate relationships. He died in 2003 aged 86. Amid many posthumous tributes, the Charles Causley International Poetry Prize was established in 2013 in his memory. His early life and closeted sexuality was dramatised in Patrick Gale‘s 2023 novel Mother’s Boy, written with the approval of Causley’s literary estate.