A poem by Bradford’s Poet Laureate Gerard Benson will be appearing on tube trains on London’s Underground.

With an estimated three million commuters and tourists using the system every day, Mr Benson’s poem Riddle is going to be seen by a lot of people.

It is one of six short poems chosen for display in the carriages. Others are by Yorkshire poet Tony Harrison, Seamus Heaney, Thomas Hardy, John Keats and Grace Nichols. Mr Benson, 80 in April, a Londoner who lives in Bradford with his wife Cathy, a writer and artist, launched Poems On The Undergound with Judith Chernaik and Cicely Herbert 25 years ago.

He said: “When the boss of the New York bus and train system saw it, he started Poetry In Motion over there. Judith, Cicely and I went over to the launch and did a reading at Grand Central Station.”

Judith Chernaik, a novelist from New York who settled with her family in London in the 1970s, said: “We don’t have an office, we don’t have any staff, but Poems On The Underground is world-famous. It has been imitated all over the world.

“We’re so pleased to have this poem by Gerard.”