A GIFTED poet who grew up in Tavistock and won a major national poetry prize at the age of 16 is using poetry sessions to raise awareness of a condition which he has suffered from all his life.

Cyrus Larcombe Moore, now 23 and studying at the University of Mancheseter, performs his poetry at open mic nights, where he is currently being open and honest about just why his hands often shake when he stands up to speak.

No he is not anxious, he explains. Nor does he have a problem with alcohol, as someone once thought might be the case. In fact, he has something called ‘essential tremor syndrome’. This condition, which causes parts of the body to move in an uncontrolled and repetitive way, most commonly affects the hands and arms. It affects one million people in the UK, mainly older people, but some people – five per cent of those who have it – are born with the condition.

‘It is called an essential tremor and it is just about the most common neurological condition in the country,’ said Cyrus. ‘It is associated with old age but I was born with the tremor as was my mum and my grandfather on my dad’s side, which meant that both my brother and I were born with it. Only five per cent of cases of essential tremor are hereditary.

‘I have been working with the National Tremor Foundation to produce a poem with them which I have published and this month, March, at poetry events in Manchester I will be talking about it and handing out flyers to raise awareness. I think in spite of it being incredibly common it is a really misrepresented condition. A lot of people when I was growing up assumed I was really anxious or really shy or that I’m not socially capable. In the same way, my grandfather was asked if he had Parkinson’s because he had a shake. He was an older man by the time I knew him and that was the first question people used to ask.’

Cyrus’s talent for writing poetry was discovered by his English teacher when he was a pupil at Tavistock College. ‘I have been writing poetry since I was about 15 and when I was 16 I was entered for the Foyle Young Poets of the Year run by the Poetry Society,’ he said. ‘It was a poem called My Ghost. My English teacher Jamie Edgcumbe basically said “you should enter this’ and so I did. I absolutely loved English at school.’

He was delighted to be one of the winners, and has been writing poetry ever since.

‘I have just turned 23, I have been getting heavily involved in the poetry scene around Manchester and two years ago I published a collection of poetry called UnPunched which is about growing up in Devon and what it means to be from here. The poems are about growing up in Devon and leaving Devon and what you miss and what you become, all those things.

‘I grew up in Fitzford Cottages and there is a bit of family lore that the first words I said were about the rooks that flew over the house to roost in the park beside it. I used to try and shout out to them as a little baby, so the collection starts with ‘Hello Rook’, which is about first being aware of Tavistock and what it means to be from here. It is about the relationship with home.’

His parents still live in the cottage where he grew up. ‘My uncle says I’m a home bird,’ he says, although he has also been happy to spread his wings and try life further afield.

Find out more at https://cyruslarcombemoore.co.ukand Cyrus’s poem for National Essential Tremor Awareness Month is at https://tremor.org.uk/news/poet-cyrus