West was born in
Aberdeen,
Scotland on 22 November 1926 to a carpenter father. His father had wanted West to join him in the
shipbuilding trade, but whereas West could not cut timber straight, he successively won bursaries to
Aberdeen Grammar School and
Cambridge University. After completing
National Service in the
Royal Air Force toward the end of the
Second World War, he matriculated at
Sidney Sussex College. West achieved a
first in the
Classical Tripos and in 1951 began research on the manuscript history of
The Frogs of
Aristophanes, which took him to
Italy. Though this ultimately came to nothing, West met at the
British School at
Rome the wealthy
Home Counties woman Pamela Murray, whom he married in 1953; together they had three sons and two daughters and remained together till her death in 1995. In 1952, West took up a lectureship at
Sheffield University, and in 1956 one at
Edinburgh University. In this time, his focus shifted to
Latin literature, especially poetry, and he published the seminal
Reading Horace in 1967. Against expectations, and West's sole book published to date, he was named as Fletcher's replacement. He also enjoyed poking fun at Newcastle's English department by hosting lunchtime seminars with faculty and picking their theories apart. West was commemorated by a
Festschrift entitled
Author and Audience in Latin Literature (1992). He delivered an exaugural speech to the University on the English poet
George Herbert's Greek-inspired "
Easter Wings". and a memorial essay collection,
Word and Context in Latin Poetry (2017), whose contributors focussed "attention on individual Latin texts by a close examination of the words used and, where appropriate, by a detailed investigation of the literary, social and historical contexts in which the texts were produced." == Works ==