This week sees the funeral of long time Nunsthorpe resident Sam Gardiner following his death on May 22nd. Sam, Irish by birth, came to the area in the late 70s and lived for many years on Milton Road. Though an architect by profession, his passion was poetry, and he rose to fame when he – as an unknown writer – unexpectedly won the National Poetry Competition with his poem Protestant Window’s. Many more poems, books, prizes and plaudits followed, including (as we mentioned at the time) the choice of one of his poems about the estate ‘Showing Me’ as Poem of the Week in The Guardian. Despite his renown in later life Sam stayed in the area, memorably describing Nunsthorpe as ‘like heaven’ in an interview with the Telegraph. He was a founding member of the Nunsthorpe Poetry Group which met regularly at Nunsthorpe Library for the whole of it’s tenure at the old school. There’s a nice obituary in the Chronicle this week (see below), and others will surely follow. 
A fuller obituary appeared this week in the Irish Times, it makes clear both Sam’s genius as a poet of international standing, and his great love of Nunsthorpe.
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Another fine obituary of Sam Gardiner by Hull based poet David Wheatley has finally appeared in the Guardian (and online – just click the link) this week.
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