SKIPTON-born poet and writer Blake Morrison has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford.

The former Ermysted's Grammar School pupil was made a Doctor of Letters in a ceremony at the university yesterday (Thursday).

The honour was conferred in recognition of his contributions as a writer and poet.

After various teaching posts Dr Morrison started his writing career as a poet, later producing two acclaimed volumes, Dark Glasses in 1984 and Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper in 1987.

He was the poetry and fiction editor of the Times Literary Supplement and later the deputy literary editor and then literary editor of The Observer. In 1990 he became the literary editor of the Independent on Sunday.

Three years later he published, And When Did You Last See Your Father - a personal account of the death of his father, Arthur, an Earby doctor - which became an award-winning book.

The same year he witnessed media coverage of the death of Liverpool toddler James Bulger and the subsequent convictions of two young boys. This led him to write As If, published in 1997, about the court trial.

His many other works include two plays, a screenplay and short film and his first novel The Justification of Johann Gutenberg.