Festival organiser and Hawkins senior partner Tony Ellis commented:  “The mistake was to have allowed only one session for the subject.  It would have happily filled the whole day.  Perhaps the weekend.”

The event on the closing Sunday afternoon of the Festival aimed to celebrate and assess Auden and MacNeice, both of whom were born 100 years ago this year.

Nineteen writers stayed in Kings Lynn for the weekend of the Festival, reading their poems to audiences and schools, and by Sunday were reportedly bouncing ideas off each other.

Mr Ellis relates:  “One writer (who is Irish) noisily claimed MacNeice for Ireland and was shouted down…MacNeice is an old boy of my school and barely visited Ireland after he was out of short trousers.”

The panel comprised world authority John Fuller, author of the Auden Commentaries; Anthony Thwaite, who published his Collected Poems recently and shared an office with MacNeice at the BBC; the poet Peter Porter, and the critic and author CK Stead.

“Anthony Thwaite drank with MacNeice at lunchtime – a hazardous activity! – and knew his subject very well indeed,” comments Mr Ellis.

“Peter Porter is the cleverest and most articulate person I have met.

“The audiences were good for all the events and the readings were almost all successful, although the Auden/MacNeice celebration was undoubtedly the highlight of the weekend.

“The star newcomer was Tiffany Atkinson from AberystwythUniversity.  The older writers were most enthusiastic about her poems.  This is the unusual ingredient of the festivals.  The writers stay together for the weekend and soon start to bounce off each other.”

“It is the best small weekend literary festival in the country or that is what the writers keep telling me.

“It was also the first my sister had been to, making it at the 43^rd attempt!  She said she had really enjoyed it and hadn’t expected to!”