Henry Forbes Summers (18 August 1911, Harrogate

Harrogate

Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. The town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters, RHS Harlow Carr gardens, and Betty's Tea Rooms. From the town one can explore the nearby Yorkshire Dales national park. Harrogate originated in the 17th...

, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

–22 December 2005) was a senior British civil servant. He published several volumes of poetry.

Summers was educated at Fettes College

Fettes College

Fettes College is an independent school for boarding and day pupils in Edinburgh, Scotland with over two thirds of its pupils in residence on campus...

, Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 and Trinity College, Oxford

Trinity College, Oxford

The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...

. He joined the Ministry of Health in 1935. He was Private Secretary to Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin Bevan

Aneurin "Nye" Bevan was a British Labour Party politician who was the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1959 until his death in 1960. The son of a coal miner, Bevan was a lifelong champion of social justice and the rights of working people...

 while he was Minister of Health, during the passage of the National Health Bill, 1945.

He moved to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government

Ministry of Housing and Local Government

The Ministry of Housing and Local Government was a United Kingdom government department formed after the Second World War, covering the areas of housing and local government....

 on its creation and was promoted to Under-Secretary in 1955. This ministry was later absorbed into the Department of the Environment

Secretary of State for the Environment

The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment . This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Building and Works on 15...

. He was made a CB

Order of the Bath

The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

 in 1961 and retired in 1971.

Publications

• Smoke After Flame, 1944
• Hinterland, 1947
• Poems in Pamphlet, 1952
• Tomorrow is my Love, 1978
• The Burning Book, 1982
• Brevities, 1991.

His most popular poems include "My Old Cat" (voted one of Britain's favourite 20th century poems in a BBC poll), "The Beginners" and "The Seed".