TODAY is the 90th anniversary of the birth of Samuel Beckett and this week Trinity College launched an appeal for Beckell memorabilia. The idea is that the library in the playwright's alma mater should become the major resource for scholars studying his life and work. They already have a great deal of material, including several manuscripts and personal letters, but as he was a diligent correspondent they are sure there is more material out there just waiting to be catalogued.
His nephew Edward Beckett came from London to help announce the public appeal and admitted that his surname often means that he is expected to be an expert on his uncle's work, which he readily admits he isn't. He did, however, get to know the great man very well when he spent four years studying music in Paris. When he goes back home, he said, he will sift through some drawers to see if there is anything of interest to Trinity.
Librarian Bill Simpson is keen to have anything to do with Beckett, and that could range from a hitherto unknown manuscript for Waiting for Godot to a bus ticket - once Beckett touched it, Trinity wants it".
At the launch, literary historian Terence Brown had his own special, curiously unliterary request - he'd love somebody to come forward with Beckett's cricket cap.