A DARWEN poet has become the first outsider to win a Rochdale poetry prize since 1938.

Jim Atherton, 86, was awarded the prestigious President’s Cup by Rochdale’s Edwin Waugh Society, which has been won solely by Rochdale poets for decades.

Jim, who has raised thousands of pounds for charity with his Lancashire dialect poems, said the society “were not best pleased” about it going to a Darrener.

However the poem ‘Husbands are Precious’ was chosen by president Denise Lye out of hundreds of entries, apparently charmed by Mr Atherton’s views on marriage.

He said: “It is all about how husbands are delicate things, like plants.

If you don’t ask them to do the washing-up and water them with pints of bitter, you will discover they become happy and blooming.

My wife Edna was chuffed with it – and she totally agrees. Of course wives need a bit of care too, and she gets a kiss from me every morning and every night.”

Lanky dialect

It reads: “Queen Victoria sat upon her throne deawn yon in London teawn.

“For 50 year hood keawred theear, and wi pride hood worn her creawn.

“To us up here in Lancashire hoo hed bin a dacent lass.

“So wi thowt as heaw her jubilee, why wi should’nd let id pass.

One of Jim’s best loved poems is entitled Darren Teawr and was written to mark the start of restoration work on Darwen Tower in June 1997