In 1963, at 13, Knopfler was a Saturday office boy at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle when Basil Bunting (50 years older) worked there as copy editor while writing his masterpiece of modernist poetry, "Briggflatts" (first read in public in 1965 and published in 1966). At some point the penny must have dropped for Knopfler and he realised that grouchy old man was a Somebody.\n\n"He peers through his wire rims\nAt the fish and chip words\nHe\'s supposed to dish up and forget"\n-great writing.
In 1963, at 13, Knopfler was a Saturday office boy at the Newcastle Evening Chronicle when Basil Bunting (50 years older) worked there as copy editor while writing his masterpiece of modernist poetry, "Briggflatts" (first read in public in 1965 and published in 1966). At some point the penny must have dropped for Knopfler and he realised that grouchy old man was a Somebody.\n\n"He peers through his wire rims\nAt the fish and chip words\nHe\'s supposed to dish up and forget"\n-great writing.