Philip Larkin's secretary shredded his 30 volumes of diaries after he died, on an instruction his will did not spell out

Larkin left the bulk of his estate to Monica Jones, his partner of decades. She became his literary executor. His will was ambiguous about his private papers. Jones relayed his instruction that the diaries be destroyed. Betty Mackereth, his secretary at the Hull university library, who had an affair with him from 1975 and knew about his other relationships, destroyed all 30 volumes. She shredded them sheet by sheet and sent the remains to the university incinerator. She said she was "perfectly happy" to do it "because that is what he wanted." Many critics did not forgive Jones, as literary trustee, for authorising the destruction. Other papers survived because the will's terms were unclear^†, and unpublished poems later appeared in collected editions^†. The Hull History Centre holds Larkin's surviving papers and Mackereth's papers about him. Monica Jones died in 2001^†, and the estate's remaining rights passed to a trust^†.