32 Facts About Eddie Linden

Eddie Linden was born John Edward Glackin in Motherwell, Lanarkshire, on 5 May 1935, the illegitimate child of Irish parents Elizabeth Glackin and Joseph Watters.

Eddie Linden never knew his birth father, but did know his birth mother.

Eddie Linden's name was changed to Edward Sean Linden upon being adopted by Mary Glenn and coal miner Eddie Linden, whom he came to regard as his true parents; his adoptive father was actually related to Elizabeth by marriage.

Mary died in 1944 and Eddie married a Presbyterian woman who disliked the young Linden.

Eddie Linden failed to have him put in an asylum, so instead had him sent to an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity.

Eddie Linden was educated at Holy Family school in Mossend and St Patrick's school in New Stevenston.

At the age of 14, Eddie Linden was "released" from the orphanage, and was often homeless.

Eddie Linden was put to work in a coal mine, then worked in a steel mill after being fired from mining.

Eddie Linden was employed as a ticket collector and porter at Hamilton West railway station.

Eddie Linden was rejected for conscription as he was deemed underweight and suffered from a duodenal ulcer.

Eddie Linden's religious upbringing caused him to struggle with his homosexuality, and he even sought treatment from doctors, but abandoned this after falling out with the medical staff.

That year, he met the Catholic priest Anthony Ross, who helped Eddie Linden come to terms with his homosexuality and encouraged him to take part in peace protests: he became involved with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Catholic Worker.

An April 1959 article by Hyde in The Catholic Herald outlined the origins of the Catholic Nuclear Disarmament Group, for whom Eddie Linden would become secretary.

In 1959, Eddie Linden arranged a meeting in Highbury Place for the Catholic CND, which was attended by novelist Pamela Frankau, Barbara Wall and John O'Connor, secretary of Pax Christi, the Catholic peace movement.

Eddie Linden took part in an August 1968 protest against Pope Paul VI's ruling over birth control which made headlines in the British press.

The ILP had lost all of its MPs by this point, and Eddie Linden describes it as having been "in its dying days".

Eddie Linden would go on to join the Labour Party, and in 2020, he stated, "I've been a Labour man all my life".

In spite of his early inclinations towards the radical left, Eddie Linden did not support the left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, who led the party from 2015 to 2020, and voted for the centre-left candidacy of Keir Starmer in the 2020 contest to succeed Corbyn.

Eddie Linden declared himself "delighted" with Starmer's subsequent election as Labour leader.

Eddie Linden was helped by the poet John Heath-Stubbs, and a donation from his friend, playwright Harold Pinter; it has been said that Linden was the inspiration for the character of Spooner in Pinter's play No Man's Land.

Eddie Linden was a member of the General Council of The Poetry Society for many years, and in 1990, he was elected to its Executive Council.

Eddie Linden had been writing verse since his teenage years, and after moving south, was encouraged by Barker and Porter.

Eddie Linden had known Barker's son Sebastian at Oxford, and in 1965 met his mother, the writer Elizabeth Smart, who adopted him as a protege; she was complimentary about the letters Linden wrote, and after Smart's death, he remarked that "she was a mother to [him]".

Eddie Linden was friends with the novelist Alan Sharp, who based the character of Sammy Giffen on Linden in his book The Wind Shifts, published in 1967.

In 1980, City of Razors, a collection of Eddie Linden's poems, was published.

Eddie Linden gave readings of his poems on BBC One, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio Scotland, Radio Clyde, and LBC Radio.

Eddie Linden gave live readings at venues around the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Canada, and the United States.

In June 1975, Eddie Linden was the subject of a portrait by Harry Diamond, who captured Soho artists on camera, and in October 1985, Eddie Linden was photographed by Granville Davies.

Eddie Linden was presented with a portrait of himself by London Irish artist Luke Canavan.

Gavin Ewart's "Eddie Linden" was included in a 1991 anthology of Ewart's poems.

Eddie Linden, who was gay, never had a partner or married.

On 19 November 2023, Eddie Linden died in a care home in Maida Vale, west London, aged 88, as a result of old age and the effects of dementia.