麻豆约拍

Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the 麻豆约拍's radio poetry archive with 'Lost Voices' featuring Robert Service.

As a young man, Brian Patten was fascinated by the life and work of Robert Service, who in the early years of the 20th century left a banking job in Glasgow for the excitement of the goldrush in the Yukon. He almost immediately found himself working in a bank again, but he was now in a romantic wilderness. In the bars of Whitehorse he heard wonderful stories of life in the Gold Rush which he transmuted into Kipling-inspired verse, and he was soon the best-paid poet in the western world. Yet despite his huge popularity, he remained the self-described 'man who wouldn't fit in'.

Now, though honoured in Canada, Robert Service's work is almost forgotten.

Poems read by James Cosmo.

Producer Christine Hall

First broadcast on 麻豆约拍 Radio 4 in 2011.