Ted Hughes was one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Now, over ten years after his death, Thames & Hudson is publishing a children’s poem by him that had been lost for over fifty years. Written in the mid-1950s to accompany his friend Jim Downer’s story about Timmy the Tug, the poem recounts Timmy’s escape from his moorings and subsequent adventures on the high seas. Downer’s illustrations are a charming focus to this enchanting tale that, besides appealing to children everywhere, is set to be one of the biggest literary events of the year.


Jim Downer is a retired exhibition designer, who conceived and illustrated Timmy the Tug as a young man fresh from art college in Leeds. He has always had a great love of the sea and now lives on the Isle of Wight. Ted Hughes (1930–1998) was an English poet and children’s writer. He was the Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998, and is routinely ranked as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes published many books and poems for children, including The Iron Man, The Iron Woman and How the Whale Became.