Robert Mitchum-Poet.

[Adam Colclough]

In his engaging documentary Oh Dad (BBC Radio4 Sunday) Lloyd Robson explored the surprising secret life of film noir legend Robert Mitchum.

In contrast to his two fisted image both on and off screen Mitchum was an accomplished poet, something he was at pains to keep a secret from his adoring public.

The biggest surprise wasn’t the fact that he wrote poetry so much as the quality of his work, while not at all ‘academic’ the half dozen or so poems quoted in the programme were well structured and pleasingly lyrical.

Robson himself made for an engaging presenter, he, like me, is obviously a fan of Mitchum’s screen persona and all things related to film noir and linked the sentiments expressed in Mitchum’s poems to his unconventional life experiences.

Its probably overstating things a little but at a time when we worry about boys falling behind at school because they think being bookish is ‘uncool’ I can’t help thinking that one picture on Myspace of the hippest cat ever to wear a trench coat reading the complete works of Keats might do more to change attitudes than a dozen well meaning literacy programmes funded by the government.