SLIPPING THE TUGS

First edition, first printing. Softcover. Signed by the author. Publisher's original card covers, with titles in dark blue to the spine and in dark blue and white to the upper board. With three blue and white photographs by Ron Harrison. A very good copy, the binding square and firm, with some rubbing and creasing to the extremities. The contents, are clean throughout, and other than the author's, without inscriptions or stamps. Retaining the original price label to the lower cover (£1.50), as issued.

Inscribed by the author in blue ink on the front endpaper "For Rhonda, / All good wishes, / Maurice". The poet-author's debut poetry publication. A Hull native and contemporary of Philip Larkin, by whom he was most influenced, Maurice Rutherford's (1922-2025) quietly powerful poetic voice sought to introduce and humanise the local Hull community and natural Humberside landscape to a wider audience. His working-class background, strong family ties, and life-long love for his late wife, Olive, provided a wealth of inspiration for his poetical musings, penning numerous love poems and elegies and various short prose works throughout his almost 50 year-long literary career. Yet one theme in particular subtly underpins his body of work - Rutherford's military past. His experiences serving in North Africa and Italy with the Royal Armoured Corps during World War II left him with an abhorrence of war, which he writes about openly in his poem 'Heinz Gropsmeyer' (p.7). As demonstrated in the poem, Rutherford's emotional depth was hard-earned in his days as a soldier, and became his greatest strength as a poet. His widely respected reputation and lyrical sensitivity continue to attract new readers today, with his perceptive portrayals of relationships, childhood, local community, and the natural world garnering universal praise.