Selling point

Value of Dundee poet recognised

Published:

MORE than 100 years after his death, the world’s worst poet, Dundee’s William McGonagall, yesterday achieved something he managed only once during his lifetime. He sold one of his works.

The man who gave us such memorable lines as “So the train moved slowly along the Bridge of Tay, Until it was about midway”, died penniless after managing to sell just one of the 200 poems he wrote. But an anonymous private buyer yesterday shelled out more than £6,000 for work by the man who was to poetry what Ernie Wise is to writing plays. Perhaps he wasn’t that bad after all.