Thankfulness and praise run through the poetry of P.J. Kavanagh, who has died aged 84. His first wife, Sally, died suddenly when he was just 27, and he felt that after having been dealt this devastating blow the rest of his life had been a series of compensations. He was to settle in Gloucestershire and find increasing happiness in a second marriage, raising two sons with his wife, Kate, and clawing his way back to a wry sort of joy through the camaraderie of acting and the solitary search for the right word as a poet and writer.He was born, during the Great Depression, to Agnes and Ted Kavanagh, who had abandoned his medical studies to become a writer. His childhood was spent shuffling between boarding houses until his father’s fortunes were transformed by the huge success of the w