THE friendship between Forest poet F W Harvey and Gloucester's Ivor Gurney, built on their joint passions for poetry, music and the landscapes of the Severn valley, is to be explored by well known author and researcher Eleanor Rawling this week.

Eleanor is to give the annual F. W. Harvey Society's Melville Watts lecture at The Annex Venue, Lydney, on Friday evening at 7.30pm. Her address is titled 'A Blowy Severn Tided Place.'

A society spokesman said Harvey's love of landscape and the natural world were at the heart of his work and his friendship with Gurney grew out of a shared passion.

"Theirs was a relationship forged in walking the riverside paths, declaiming poetry from the small Severnside hills and sailing, often recklessly, on the tidal reaches of the river itself. The war separated them and complicated their lives but, it may be argued, it didn't destroy their jointly created image of the 'blowy Severn tided place' ," she said.

The talk will draw on Gurney's poetry and prose and highlight the importance of the place itself in the creative development of both men.

Eleanor is a research fellow at the University of Oxford and an independent geography researcher and consultant. Among many achievements, she was awarded an MBE in 1995 for services to geographical education. She has published many books and articles.

More recently she has extended her research into cultural and literary geography and has explored poetry and place, drawing on her passion for her native Gloucestershire.

The society will welcome visitors to the lecture and entry is £2 at the door. Further details are available from www. fwharveysociety.co.uk