TRAVEL: Becalmed in Larkinland

Bradford basks in Bronte fame, but Hull is too modest about its great literary asset, says Stephen McClarence; The Humber bridge may vanish in a sea fret

THE BRIDES of The Whitsun Weddings are grandmothers now. You see them from the train as it meanders through one of England's most unexpected landscapes - on the route Philip Larkin took from Hull to London that warm Saturday afternoon in the early Sixties.

Ten years after his death, Larkin could spell big business for Hull, if the city capitalises on the free publicity it gained from the Government's plan to reclassify it as a seaside resort. The resulting speculation about sewage works and excrement misses the point: that Hull is now firmly registered in the national consciousness as A Place; and therefore as A Place to Visit. Towns as unlikely - to outsiders - as Barnsley and Huddersfield are hoisting a hopeful flag for tourism. Thanks to John Gummer, Hull has a head start.

But to pull in the coach parties, it needs a bit of literary heritage to rival Bronte Country and Catherine Cookson Country. Look no further than the library catalogue. With a short but proudly provincial fanfare, we suggest... Larkinland, cashing in on the legacy of Hull's second most famous poet (after Andrew Marvell) and indisputably most famous university librarian.

Larkin wasn't always kind to Hull, a place, he wrote, "where only salesmen and relations come''. But no hard feelings. Blue plaques must go up on the shops where he bought his bicycle clips and his Sidney Bechet LPs, on the probable site of Mr Bleaney's bedsit, on the stores where his "cut- price crowd'' eyed up their "cheap suits, red kitchenware, sharp shoes, iced lollies''.

And to complete the package: The Larkin Line. Hull to Doncaster, the first leg of Larkin's celebrated journey through backwater Britain in The Whitsun Weddings. "A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept,'' he wrote as the train picked up brides and grooms starting their honeymoons - and the curve is still there, even in the days of senior conductors, customers and catering trolleys.

On a misty morning, it's a route charged with Larkin's provincial melancholy. The Humber bridge is all but submerged in a sea fret, the fields steam in the sunshine, scarecrows are silhouetted in the mist. The line passes marshes and dykes - drainage is very big here - under vast pearl skies where clouds press heavily down like a bad hangover. The land stretches out, unnervingly flat, alarmingly empty. Not so much the land Time forgot as the land Time was never told about.

There are two small towns on the route: Thorne, quietly celebrated as the birthplace of Thomas Crapper, inventor of the flush toilet; and Goole, spiritual home of The Whitsun Weddings, a place waiting for Larkin to lark in.

Goole is not an encouraging name for a town. Spoken slowly, it carries a regrettable hint of the living dead. And, on its languid double-bend of the River Ouse, it hasn't always had a good press. Guidebooks are littered with gratuitous insults. "The best route to Hull avoids Goole,'' notes one. "Sailors used to call it Sleepy Hollow,'' notes another - and that was when it was the country's busiest inland port, when most of Yorkshire's coal and textiles were shipped out through its docks into the Humber.

You can see the dock cranes from five miles away. They rear up over shining lagoons of water 50 miles from the sea. A curious public footpath zigzags round warehouses, over swing bridges and past boarded-up pubs. The footpath is marked by two yellow lines just three feet apart. Everyone stays between those lines: the cycling shoppers with baskets hung on the handlebars, the old men with flat caps pushed well back, their wives with wicker shopping trolleys, The Whitsun Weddings brides pushing their grandchildren's prams.

It's a strange place, more water than land, more Holland than Eng-land. It has a frontier feel, an outpost, with its main street bisected by Larkin's railway line. One way: the Sugarcraft Schoolroom (night classes in cake decoration) and a charity shop where the Mills and Boons are arranged in alphabetical order. The other: the library, opened by C Day Lewis - poetry everywhere here. The Northern Comfort Barbershop Singers advertise a concert at the Central Methodist Church and The Flatlanders Outdoor Club claims: "Our area may be flat, but our autumn programme certainly isn't.''

The Herbal Arcade, a legendary meeting place on drizzly Sundays, has gone. A lad in an Afghan coat buys a second-hand Grateful Dead LP from a record shop. Push open a pub door and the barman jumps startled to his feet. The place is empty.

Back on the train, the Senior Steward, pushing his trolley, wears an earring. Larkin would have had something to say about that.

! The Philip Larkin Society will be launched at the Hull Festival, 10- 12 November. For more information, call Jim Dunsday: 01482 466326