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John Betjeman

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Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August, 1906 – 19 May, 1984) was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack". He was born to a middle class family in Edwardian London. Although he failed his degree at Oxford University his early ability in writing poetry and interest in architecture would support him throughout his life. He wrote poetry throughout his life; starting his career as a lowly journalist he ended it as a much loved figure on British television.

Contents

Life

Early life and education

John Betjeman was born John Betjemann, which became the less German "Betjeman" during World War I. He started life at Parliament Hill Mansions on the bottom edge of Hampstead Heath in north London. His parents were Mabel (née Dawson) and Ernest Betjemann, who ran the family firm which manufactured furniture and the household gadgets so loved by Victorians. His father's forebears had come from Bremen, GermanyMowl, Timothy (2000). Stylistic Cold Wars, Betjeman versus Pevsner, p 13. more than a century before, setting up their home and business in Islington, London. In 1909 the Betjemans left Parliament Hill Mansions, moving half a mile north to more opulent Highgate where from West Hill, in the reflected glory of the Burdett-Coutts estate, they could look down on those less fortunate:
Here from my eyrie, as the sun went down,
I heard the old North London puff and shunt,
Glad that I did not live in Gospel Oak.Betjeman, John (1960). Summoned by Bells, p 5.
Betjemans's early schooling was at the local Byron House and Highgate Junior Schools after which he boarded at the Dragon School preparatory school in Oxford and Marlborough College, a public school in Wiltshire, England. After school Betjeman was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. While at school, reading the works of Arthur Machen won him over to an allegiance to High Church Anglicanism a conversion of vital importance personally and for his later writing and interest in art and architecture. At Oxford Betjeman made little use of the academic opportunities; although C S Lewis was his tutor there, they probably had a dislike for each other. He had a poem published in Isis a university magazine and was editor of another called Cherwell during 1927.

It is a common misaprehension, cultivated by Betjeman himself, that he did not complete his degree because he failed to pass the compulsory Holy Scripture examination, known as Divinity (in Summoned by Bells), or "Divvers" (colloquially). In Hilary Term 1928, after several previous attempts, Betjeman failed Divinity yet again. He was rusticated (temporarily sent down) for Trinity Term and permitted to return in October. Meanwhile, he wrote to G.C. Lee, Secretary of the Tutorial Board at Magdalen, stating his position and asking to be entered for the Pass School (a set of examinations taken on rare occasions by undergraduates who are deemed unlikely to achieve an honours degree). It is thus also a myth that C.S. Lewis said, "You'd have only got a Third"; rather, Lewis informed the Tutorial Board that he thought Betjeman would not achieve an honours degree of any class. Permission to sit the Pass School was granted, which was the occasion of Betjeman's famous decision to offer a paper in Welsh. The story told by Osbert Lancaster that a tutor was imported twice a week by train (first class), from Aberystwyth is probably also apocryphal, since Jesus College had a number of Welsh tutors who would have taught him. Betjeman was finally sent down, permanently this time, at the end of Michaelmas Term 1928. (See B. Hillier, Young Betjeman,pp. 181-94) Pace Hillier (according to whom Betjeman was sent down before he was allowed to sit Divinity again), it has been clarified that he did in fact pass Divinity, but failed the Pass School, having achieved a pass in only one of the three papers, namely Shakespeare and contemporaries (not Welsh!). (See Oxford Today, Trinity Term 2006) Although he was never reconciled to C.S. Lewis, Betjeman retained a deep fondness for Oxford and several decades later he accepted an honorary D.Litt.

Much of this period of his life is recorded in his blank verse autobiography, Summoned by Bells which was published in 1960 and made into a television film in 1976.

After university

Betjeman may have left Oxford without a degree, but he had made the acquaintance of people who would influence his work, including Louis MacNeice, W H Auden, Maurice Bowra, Osbert Lancaster, Tom Driberg and the Sitwells.

After university Betjeman worked briefly as a private secretary, school teacher and as a film critic for the Evening Standard. After some freelance pieces for the Architectural Review he was employed on the journal's full time staff as an assistant editor between 1930 and 1935. Betjeman up to this point had been an admirer of Victorian decoration; he changed his views, or bit his tongue, while writing for The Review — the editor was a vigorous proponent of Modernism. Mowl (2000) says, "His years at the Architectural Review were to be his true university." At this time, while his prose style matured, he also joined the MARS Group, an organisation of young modernist architects and architectural critics in Britain.

On 29 July 1933 John Betjeman married Penelope Chetwode, the daughter of a field marshal in the British Army, Lord Chetwode. The couple lived in Oxfordshire and would have a son, Paul, in 1937.

The Shell Guides, a series of British county guides, came from an idea developed by Betjeman and Jack Beddington, a friend who was publicity manager with Shell-Mex Ltd. The guides were aimed at Britain's growing number of motorists who drove out to churches and historical sites at weekends. They were published by the Architectural Press and financed by Shell. By the start of World War II 13 had been published, of which Cornwall (1934) and Devon (1936) had been written by Betjeman. A third, Shropshire, was written with John Piper in 1951.

In 1939 Betjeman was rejected for active service but found war work with the films division of the Ministry of Information. In 1941 he became British press attaché in Dublin, Ireland, which was a neutral country during the war. He may have been involved with intelligence gathering and is reported to have been selected for assassination by the IRA until they decided that a published poet was unlikely to be involved in such work.

The Betjemans' daughter Candida (later Candida Lycett-Green) was born while they were in Dublin. At the height of the "swinging" sixties, she was publishing poetry of her own, notably the "Knightsbridge Ballad" (1967) in which she declared that she was "frightfully keen" on actor Terence Stamp and wished she had a bigger bust ("Though Mummy says it's frightfully smart/And any more would beckon lust").

After World War II

The poet's wife, Lady Penelope Betjeman, became a Roman Catholic in 1948 and the couple drifted apart. In 1951, he met Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, with whom he developed an immediate and lifelong friendship.

By 1948 Betjeman had published more than a dozen books. Five of these were verse collections, including one in the USA; although not admired by some literary critics, his poetry was popular (sales of his Collected Poems in 1958 reached 100,000).

He continued writing guidebooks and works on architecture during the 1960s and 1970s and started broadcasting. His work was not limited to these activities; he was a founder member of The Victorian Society in 1958 and put great effort into the protection of old buildings of architectural merit which were in danger of demolition. Betjeman was also closely associated with the culture and spirit of Metro-land, the name by which the outer reaches of the Metropolitan Railway were known before the war. In 1973 he made a television documentary for the BBC called Metro-land.

In his public image Betjeman never took himself too seriously. His poems are often humorous and in broadcasting he exploited his bumbling and fogeyish image. His wryly comic verse, is accessible and has attracted a great following for its satirical and observant grace. Auden said in his introduction to Slick But Not Streamlined "... so at home with the provincial gaslit towns, the seaside lodgings, the bicycle, the harmonium." His poetry is similarly redolent of time and place:

Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,from A Subaltern's Love-song in New Bats in Old Belfries (1945).
and
I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.
In every roadside hostelry from here to Burgess Hillfrom Executive in A Nip in the Air (1974).
John Betjeman's grave
Enlarge
John Betjeman's grave
He became Poet Laureate in 1972. His honours included: He lived from 1972 until his death in Wantage, Oxfordshire, where a memorial park has since been established in his name. It is situated in a peaceful wooded glade and includes quotations from a number of his poems.

Sir John Betjeman had Parkinson's Disease. He died at 77, survived by his wife and their children. He is buried at Trebetherick, Cornwall.

Work

Printed

Most of the work below has been published more than once. In most cases the details given are those of first publication.

Verse

Prose

Radio/Prose

Television

His television programmes included:

Bibliography

   a bibliography of work by John Betjeman is shown above.

References

Other sources

  • Betjeman, John (1960). Summoned by Bells. London: John Murray.
  • Mowl, Timothy (2000). Stylistic Cold Wars, Betjeman versus Pevsner. London: John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-5909X
  • [Biography by Jocelyn Brooke]

External links

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