A POET described as the greatest literary critic of his generation, is to be the subject of a BBC documentary.

Ian Hamilton, died in December aged 63, after devoting his life to writing as a poet, biographer and critic.

He worked as a literary critic for newspapers and review magazines, presented BBC2s Bookmark programme, as well as writing biographies and his own poetry.

His boyhood haunts in Darlington are revisited in the documentary by his younger brother, Stuart.

Mr Hamilton was 13 when his family moved to Langholm Crescent, Darlington from Norfolk in 1951. His father died of cancer within a year.

Mr Hamilton attended the Boys' Grammar School, now Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College. At 17, he published The Scorpion, a magazine in competition with the official school publication.

After national service with the RAF in Germany, he studied English at Oxford, before heading to London.

The documentary will be screened next month on the new digital channel, BBC4.

Mr Hamilton's last book, Against Oblivion: Some Lives of the Twentieth-Century Poets is published on Thursday by Viking.