Robert Forsythe is a freelance writer, based in Northumberland, with a particular interest in W.H. Auden and his involvement with the North Pennines. He has an Industrial Archaeology and Theology background, which contributes to his investigations of the industrial and moral links to Hadrian’s Wall. He has jointly written W.H. Auden: Pennine Poet with Alan Myers.

Robert worked with First School pupils at Heddon (whose petrol station entered Auden's 1937 commissioned BBC radio play Hadrian's Wall - An Historical Survey) to explore the notions of the importance of the ordinary and who is the barbarian via Auden's work. Part of the workshops re-invigorated the pupils’ interest in their locality, which played a role in Auden’s work, but to which they have become familiar.

He has made an extensive study of Auden's relationship to the Pennines. It is not always realised that the Pennine moors from Brough to Hadrian's Wall were an intimate part of Auden's life. Auden had explored the Roman Wall area thoroughly.

Auden's attachment to the Wall was not slavish. He once wrote "a branch line railroad is as important as a Roman Wall", and that branch line could have been the one to Alston, or many others. Auden's reflections on the Wall provide an evocative portrait down to everyday details and additionally introduce a strong moral dimension. He was concerned to understand what the Wall's existence revealed about barbarism, the Romans came, stole and stayed. This was called civilisation.