The secret school library book never returned that inspired one of Yorkshire's greatest writers

His poetry, often centred on the relationship between humanity and nature, has been celebrated, studied and puzzled over for decades.

But for generations of children, it is his charming and poignant novel The Iron Man which provides the introduction to his work.

Now the book, published in 1968, forms the inspiration for a new hub of literature based at his old school, Mexborough Grammar.

Doncaster Stories, a project run by the National Literacy Trust, has installed a mural commemorating The Iron Man as well as boards detailing Hughes’s schooling and legacy

at the Mexborough Business Centre – once the site of the school.

The new Literacy Lab in the Centre provides “new space to empower children to reach their potential through literacy”, with workshops, readings and author visits on the cards for children living in the town.

It’s an intervention the charity believes is needed in the town where just 67 per cent of 11-year-olds meet expected reading standards – falling again to 52 per cent among those on free school meals.

Phil Sheppard, manager of the project, said: “The lab is a creative place – it’s different, it’s fun, it’s somewhere children can go and not just look at books, but explore books through drama, poetry and performance.

“The pandemic has widened the gap between those children who get on with reading and those who have fallen behind.

“Something like this that brings literature to life will capture the imagination of some of those hard to reach children – that’s what we’re aiming for.”

For Ted Hughes, inset, a love of literature was fostered at Mexborough Grammar.

He attended the school from 1941 to 1949, and was remembered by teachers as bright but poorly motivated.

But although he only achieved marks that put him halfway up his form, Hughes found the school library an enriching place where he discovered a love for independent reading.

His teacher, Miss McLeod, noticed an aptitude for writing and praised one of his stories so highly that his mother, Edith Hughes, rushed out to buy her son a set of classic books including Shakespeare to inspire her son to further his literary exploits.

In the same year rumour has it that a copy of Henry Williamson’s nature novel Tarka the Otter was taken out on loan from the library by Hughes, and was never returned.

“Apparently he could recite the whole thing from beginning to end,” said Mr Sheppard, “There will be a copy in the lab – and we may well call it the Tarka library.”

“You know you’re somewhere special here.”

Ted Hughes’s first poem was published while he was a pupil at Mexborough Grammar School – in its own magazine, The Don and Dearne.

Wild West was printed in the magazine in 1947, and by the time Hughes left school he was already recognised by fellow pupils and his teachers as a talented poet.

With the support of his teacher John Fisher, Hughes won a scholarship to Cambridge University to study English Literature.