Tim Sillence

Tim Sillence (1944-2002) was a poet and writer.
He was born in Surrey but when in 1947 his father was posted at RAF Swanton Morley his family moved to Norfolk. After attending Norwich School he joined the RAF and later studied to be a motor mechanic at Norwich Technical College. He was once hailed by a former collaborator on Radio 4 as one of the country's great unsung poets.
Sillence often read his work at Bristow's Bookshop in Bridewell Alley, which he helped found in the late 1960s with Giles Bristow, and where he worked for five years. He was also associated with the counter-culture figure of Jeff Nuttall, author of the book Bomb Culture (1968) during a short residence in the city after its publication. Among his best-known writings are the prose-piece The Great Speed Wars, (1975 reprinted 2013), an account of the Yom Kippor War which he experienced while on a kibbutz in Israel, and also the haiku-like verse-
Norfolk is a flat land
within easy reach
of the Himalayas.
In the 1980's he studied horticulture at Burlingham and worked as a gardener. In his last years he lived in properties run by St. Martin's Housing Trust. He suffered a heart-attack at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital where he died aged 57.
Well-known around the pubs of Norwich for his story telling and was a regular in 'The Vine', in Dove Street. Friends describe him as an "impish bar-room philosopher with the gift of the gab" who recounted amusing stories, such as the time he ate burgers at a roadside cafe on the A1 with American poet Allen Ginsburg.

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