Relph presents an interesting amalgam of the clerical man-of-letters and working-class/regional poet archetypes. He was born into an Anglican clerical family and was ordained, but he attended Glasgow (taking no degree) rather than one of the English universities and spent his short life (he died at 30) as a curate drawing £30 p.a. His poems are written in Cumbrian dialect, but judging from the first one they're framed by verse introductions in standard English, implying a code-switching regional speaker who also knows the national standard.