Chris Torrance obituary

My friend Chris Torrance, who has died aged 80, was an important member of the British Poetry Revival of the 1960s and 70s, and an inspiration and mentor to many young and aspiring poets in south Wales and throughout Britain.

Chris was born in Edinburgh, the elder of two sons of John Torrance, a chartered accountant, and Kathleen (nee McConville), a nurse. His father was Scottish, and his mother a Northern Irish Catholic; although Chris himself ceased to practise at an early age, he attributed his firmly held belief in the transformative nature of poetry to this Catholic background.