ONE of the 20th century's most famous poets is under-recognised in Newport, the city of his birth. Mike Buckingham spoke to the author of a new biography of WH Davies.

W H Davies is a poet not greatly honoured in his own city of Newport, yet there is nobody claiming any familiarity with 20th century literature who does not know his name.

Newport has a statue in his honour and the public house in which he claimed to have been born 133 years ago is still recognisably the same place, and with the same name.

Apart from the fact that most Newportonians are able to come close to quoting his most famous line from the poem Leisure written in 1911, that seems to be the extent of Davies' footprints in his native city.

It is perhaps a rebuke to Newport and Gwent that a woman born in Middlesex and living in Gloucestershire has written the most comprehensive biography of W H Davies to appear for many years.

Barbara Hooper has chosen the title Time to Stand and Stare for her incisive work.

On his own account (although some historians think it cannot be so) Davies was born at the Church House inn in Pill. Brought up by his grand-parents after the early death of his father and his mother's swift re-marriage, Davies worked for an ironmonger before being apprenticed to a picture framer. In the course of a rackety early life in Newport in which he displayed an early taste for low company, Davies was arrested for stealing perfume, and birched. "Despite all this, he developed a love of poetry at school," says Barbara Hooper, who lives at Bisley, near Stroud. "He had read Burns, Wordsworth and Blake and had a definite feel for poetry and a love for the theatre. He also had itchy feet and after leaving Newport embarked on a cattle boat for Baltimore in the USA in 1893." Then began a series of prodigious North American wanderings on foot and by stolen boxcar rides, from America's South to the Klondike, during which time he mixed with the toughs and the hobos, stockmen and farm workers. On six separate occasions he made the journey to North America, returning home after he lost a foot as he tried to jump aboard a train near Renfrew, Ontario. His wandering days at an end, Davies returned to Britain and embarked upon the business of becoming a full-time writer. Admired and assisted by, among others, George Bernard Shaw, Davies lived first in Sussex and finally in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire where, at the age of 50, he married Helen Payne, a former prostitute 30 years his junior. It is here that Barbara Hooper picked up the trail.

"I started with Mr Norman Phillips, a nephew of the poet, who now owns the house in which Davies lived. With Mr Phillips I visiting the Church House, the docks and the city's art gallery. Incredibly, Myfanwy Thomas, Edwards' daughter, is still alive and remembers the poet as a child."

A mystery surrounds the poet's bequest following his death in 1940. The literary estate was left to Peter Flavell, a retired university librarian with barely traceable connections to the poet and who remains bemused as to why he should have been so favoured.

Davies died in September, 1940, while the Battle of Britain was at its height. W H Davies' body was cremated at Cheltenham but it is not known how his ashes were disposed of.

Barbara Hooper believes that Davies influenced George Orwell. Indeed, the connections between Orwell's diary of his life as a tramp and Davies' own experiences are too similar to ignore.

All the more reason then, that the poet should be remembered. An inspiration to those who came after, but predominantly a Newportonian who although great, has a spirit which is strangely elusive in the city of his birth.

Time To Stand And Stare by Barbara Hooper is published by Peter Owen at £15.95.