FORMER publishing director of Peterloo Poets in Calstock Harry Chambers died last week at the age of 75.

Mr Chambers, who helped many unknown poets achieve national recognition, most notably U A Fanthorpe, was awarded the MBE in 2010 for his services to poetry.

Peterloos Poets was run from the Old Chapel in Calstock, now an arts centre, for 12 years after it was restored with £400,000 of grant funding.

Mr Chambers spearheaded the project and singlehandedly ran Peterloo Poets until 2009 when he retired and moved to York. The chapel was taken over by a group of trustees. He died on September 14 in York Hospital.

Mr Chambers was described by poet Seamus Heaney as one the great 'hearers and hearteners' of the work being done in British and Irish poetry at the time — the former lecturer launched the work of many poets, including John Whitworth and John Mole.

When he received the MBE, Mr Chambers, who ran an independent poetry press for 37 years, said: 'I have spent a lifetime publishing poetry and it is nice not just for me but for other people who labour in the vineyard of poetry that poetry has been recognised in this way.'

He said it came at a time when he had wound up his publishing empire and the old chapel had been sold by the trustees, but it would remain a venue for the arts for the Calstock community which was some sort of legacy for Peterloo.

Harry Chambers was brought up in Nottinghamshire and as a student he founded 'The Phoenix' literary magazine which continued for many years, long after Peterloo Poets was born. Peterloo was named after the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, a city where Mr Chambers spent time as an English lecturer.

He and his wife Lyn moved to Cornwall in the mid 1970s, first to Liskeard and then to Calstock, where the attractiveness of a train line was a real draw for the publisher who did not drive. They lived in an idyllic cottage in Kelly Gardens which overlooked the River Tamar and had views over Cotehele estate.

Mr Chambers' sister Elizabeth Sandie said despite the love he had for Calstock — and he missed the people, particularly his neighbours — he had fitted in well in York where he made many friends because he was a 'people person'.

'He had mobility problems because of his arthritis and he lived close to the centre of town where he could visit the theatres and the cinema and he joined the York Poetry Society,' she said. 'He remained independent until the last two weeks of his life.'

In 2009 John Lucas published a monograph entitled 'Harry Chambers and Peterloo Poets — 37 years of poetry publishing'