Try before you buy... Download a free sample of Ted Burford's book here, containing six of our favourites from "Selected Poems".

Ted Burford was born and brought up in Hunslet, Leeds, quite near, as he discovered much later, several other writers including Richard Hoggart, and Alan Bennett with whom he exchanged postcards, 60 years on. His own evocatively derelict part of Hunslet haunts many of his poems: going back in middle age, Ted failed to find not only his family back-to-back house, but even the street it had been in. Slum clearance had done for both. He worked as an electrician before serving some war years as an army radio NCO, after which he left Leeds for London and a technical job with The Civil Aviation Authority. Here he rose into middle-class prosperity without, as he said, “ever meeting in 30 years anyone who had read T. S. Eliot.”

At 57 he took early retirement to devote himself to writing, mainly poems and short stories which were, individually, widely published in magazines, anthologies and newspapers.  One of his stories won The Bridport Competition first prize and a poem was a runner-up in The National Poetry Competition. His 1976 poetry collection A Cranefly Incident won a Yorkshire Arts Award and he was one of the poets in Staple First Editions Quintet, 1993 . He had less success with mainline poetry publishers, complaining, like many of us, that they were interested almost exclusively in “streetwise youth”. As streetwise as the next, but often really wise with it, Ted became a recognised figure on the London literary scene, doing many readings through the years and well liked for his friendliness and urbane wit. With Geoffrey Adkins, in the 70s and 80s, he edited the little literary magazine Limestone , and in the 90s reinvented this as a Web magazine.

He died aged 74, on June 14th 2000, shortly after a heart attack.

This selection, a sizeable fraction of Ted Burford's poetry, has been chosen and edited by his old literary and personal friend, Ron Taylor (Limestone Magazine's Editor) and put together with the help of his son-in-law, Trevor Burford-Reade (Limestone Magazine's Webmaster).

Limestone Magazine is proud to anounce that 'Selected Poems' by Ted Burford, containing 94 of his poems, is now available in Adobe Portable Document Format. If you don't already have it, you will need the free Adobe Reader software, available here. Click the button below to buy "Selected Poems" with your credit or debit card using PayPal's secure payment site. We will email the file as soon as we recive confirmation of your payment.