John Betjeman

Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.

Quotes

"I think the mystery of its winding drive gave me a respect for the system of hereditary land owing which I have never shaken off. (Rawsden Manor Wilts.)
- Ghastly Good Taste (1933)

The test of an abstract picture, for me, is not my first reaction to it, but how long I can stand it hanging on the wall of a room where I am living.
- John Piper (Penguin Books, 1944), p. 12

It was through looking at churches that I came to believe in the reason churches were built.
- John Guest (ed.) The Best of Betjeman (Penguin Modern Classics, 1985). Written in 1948 (Blisland)

History must not be written with bias, and both sides must be given, even if there is only one side.
- First and Last Loves (1952)

Hymns are the poetry of the people.
- Radio Talk. BBC Radio (4 July 1975)

There are two things you need for a jolly good hymn. The first is a set of words that expresses the mood or sentiment of the worshipper. The second—and perhaps even more important—is a good tune ... with a simple popular melody.
- Radio Talk. BBC Radio 4 (2 August 1978)

Hymn tunes are the nearest we've got to English folk music.
- Radio Talk. BBC Radio 4 (2 August 1978)

One mark of good verse is surprise.
- Radio Talk. BBC Radio 4 (2 August 1978)

Topography is one of my chief themes in my poetry...about the country, the suburbs and the seaside...then there comes love...and increasingly, the fear of death.
- Radio Talk. BBC Third Programme (1949)

I ought to warn you that my verse is of no interest to people who can think.
- Radio Talk. BBC Third Programme (1949)

Ghastly Good Taste, or a Depressing Story of the Rise and Fall of English Architecture.
- Title and sub-title of book (1933)

Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station.
- London's Historic Railway Stations (1973)

All I can say is that with age I find myself enjoying more and more the words and rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer. Apart from their meaning, they sound right and they are not talking down to us by being matey, and where they're a bit vague and archaic, that makes them grand and historic. The words give me time to meditate and pray; they are so familiar, they are like my birthplace, and I don't want them pulled down.
We are all of us preservationists who have had the luck to come out of the womb and with all our faculties.
- Reported in Brian Morris (ed.) Ritual Murder: Essays on Liturgical Reform (1980) p. 31

Yes, I haven't had enough sex.
- In an interview for the television documentary Time With Betjeman (February 1983), having been asked whether he had any regrets.
- Reported in Ned Sherrin (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations] (2008) p. 286 [1]

Poetry

Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn’s Harvest Festival.
- "Diary of a Church Mouse", from Collected Poems (1958)

A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes... it’s rather odd.
- "Diary of a Church Mouse"

A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High.
- "Diary of a Church Mouse"

Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
[...]
But all the same it’s strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don’t see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.
- "Diary of a Church Mouse"

Safe were those evenings of the pre-war world
When firelight shone on green linoleum,
I heard the church bells hollowing out the sky,
Deep beyond deep, like never-ending stars.
- Summoned by Bells (1960)

The dread of beatings! Dread of being late!
And, greatest dread of all, the dread of games!
- Summoned by Bells (1960) ch. 7

It's strange that those we miss the most
Are those we take for granted.
- "The Hon. Sec.", line 39, from High and Low (1966)

I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner;
I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.
- "Executive", line 1, from A Nip in the Air (1974)

Mount Zion (1931)

Sing on, with hymns uproarious,
Ye humble and aloof,
Look up! and oh how glorious
He has restored the roof!
- "Hymn"

The Church’s Restoration
In eighteen-eighty-three
Has left for contemplation
Not what there used to be.
- "Hymn"

Oh! Chintzy, Chintzy cheeriness,
Half dead and half alive!
- "Death in Leamington"

Broad of Church and ‘broad of Mind’,
Broad before and broad behind,
A keen ecclesiologist,
A rather dirty Wykehamist.
- "The Wykehamist"

Continual Dew (1937)

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
- "Slough", l. 1

He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer
As he gazed at the London skies
Through the Nottingham lace of the curtains
Or was it his bees-winged eyes?
He rose, and he put down The Yellow Book.
He staggered—and, terrible-eyed,
He brushed past the palms on the staircase
And was helped to a hansom outside.
- "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel", sts. 1-2

Spirits of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe
Flutter and bear him up the Norfolk sky.
- "Death of King George V", l. 1

Old men in country houses hear clocks ticking
Over thick carpets with a deadened force.
- "Death of King George V", l. 7

Old men who never cheated, never doubted,
Communicated monthly, sit and stare
At the new suburb stretched beyond the run-way
Where a young man lands hatless from the air.
- "Death of King George V", l. 9

Whist upon whist upon whist upon whist drive, in Institute, Legion and Social Club.
Horny hands that hold the aces which this morning held the plough.
- "Dorset", l. 2

Old Lights for New Chancels (1940)

Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans.
Spare their women for Thy Sake,
And if that is not too easy,
We will pardon Thy Mistake.
But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,
Don't let anyone bomb me.
- "In Westminster Abbey", st. 2

Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.
Lord, put beneath Thy special care
One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.
- "In Westminster Abbey", st. 3

He would have liked to say goodbye,
Shake hands with many friends.
In Highgate now his finger-bones
Stick through his finger-ends.
You, God, who treat him thus and thus,
Say, "Save his soul and pray."
You ask me to believe You and
I only see decay.
- "On a Portrait of a Deaf Man", l. 25

Pam, I adore you, Pam, you great big mountainous sports girl,
Whizzing them over the net, full of the strength of five:
That old Malvernian brother, you zephyr and khaki shorts girl,
Although he’s playing for Woking, can’t stand up to your wonderful backhand drive.
- "Pot Pourri from a Surrey Garden"

The gas was on in the Institute,
The flare was up in the gymn,
A man was running a mineral line,
A lass was singing a hymn,
When Captain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Came swimming along in the old canal
That carries the bricks to Lawley.
- "A Shropshire Lad"

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945)

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament — you against me!
- "A Subaltern's Love-song" line 1

We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
- "A Subaltern's Love-song" line 43

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won.
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.
- "A Subaltern's Love-song"

By roads ‘not adopted’, by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o’clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car-park the dance has begun.
Oh! full Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl’s hand!
- "A Subaltern's Love-song"

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place.
- "In Ireland with Emily"

Oh shall I see the Thames again?
The prow-promoted gems again,
As beefy ATS
Without their hats
Come shooting through the bridge?
And "cheerioh" and "cheeri-bye"
Across the waste of waters die,
And low the mists of evening lie
And lightly skims the midge.
- "Henley-on-Thames"

Belbroughton Road is bonny, and pinkly bursts the spray
Of prunus and forsythia across the public way,
For a full spring-tide of blossom seethed and departed hence,
Leaving land-locked pools of jonquils by sunny garden fence.
And a constant sound of flushing runneth from windows whereThe toothbrush too is airing in this new North Oxford air.
- "May-Day Song for North Oxford"

A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954)

No hope. And the X-ray photographs under his arm
Confirm the message. His wife stands timidly by.
The opposite brick-built house looks lofty and calm,
Its chimneys steady against the mackerel sky.
- "Devonshire Street W.1", l. 1

And behind their frail partitions
Business women lie and soak,
Seeing through the draughty skylight
Flying clouds and railway smoke.
Rest you there, poor unbelov'd ones,
Lap your loneliness in heat,
All too soon the tiny breakfast,
Trolley-bus and windy street!
- "Business Girls", l. 13

But I'm dying now and done for,
What on earth was all the fun for?
I am ill and old and terrified and tight.
- "Sun and Fun — Song of a Night-club Proprietress"

In the licorice fields at Pontefract
My love and I did meet
And many a burdened licorice bush
Was blooming round our feet;
Red hair she had and golden skin,
Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,
Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd
The strongest legs in Pontefract.
- "The Licorice Fields at Pontefract", st. 1

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
   And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children’s hearts are glad,
   And Christmas-morning bells say ‘Come!’
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true? And is it true,
   This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
   A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
- "Christmas", sts. 5-6

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare—
That God was man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.
- "Christmas", st. 8

Phone for the fish-knives, Norman
As Cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.
- "How to Get On in Society", st. 1

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I’m afraid the preserve’s full of stones;
Beg pardon, I’m soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.
- "How to Get On in Society", st. 5

In the Garden City Café with its murals on the wall
Before a talk on "Sex and Civics" I meditated on the Fall.
- "Huxley Hall", st. 1

Gaily into Ruislip Gardens
Runs the red electric train,
With a thousand Ta’s and Pardon’s
Daintily alights Elaine;
Hurries down the concrete station
With a frown of concentration,
Out into the outskirt’s edges
Where a few surviving hedges
Keep alive our lost Elysium—rural Middlesex again.
- "Middlesex"

There was sun enough for lazing upon beaches,
There was fun enough for far into the night.
But I’m dying now and done for,
What on earth was all the fun for?
For God’s sake keep that sunlight out of sight.
- "Sun and Fun"

Metro-land (1973 film)

Child of the First War,
Forgotten by the Second.
We called you Metro-Land. We laid our schemes
Lured by the lush brochure,
down byways beckoned,
To build at last the cottage of our dreams,
A City clerk turned countryman again,
And linked to the Metropolis by train.

[Sitting at table] Is this Buckingham Palace?
Are we at the Ritz? No. This is the Chiltern Court Restaurant, built above Baker Street station, the gateway between Metro-land out there and London down there. The creation of the Metropolitan Railway.

And here, screened by shrubs,
Walled in from public view,
Lived the kept women.
What puritan arms have stretched within these rooms
To touch what tender breasts,
As the cab-horse stamped in the road outside.
Sweet secret suburb on the City's rim,
St John's Wood.

[Standing in centre of the pitch at Wembley] This was where London's failed Eiffel Tower stood. Watkins' Folly as it was called. Here on this Middlesex turf, and since then the site has become quite well-known.

[Standing in front of a house in Harrow] A verge in front of your house and grass and a tree for the dog. Variety created in the façades of each of the houses — in the colouring of the trees. In fact, the country had come to the suburbs. Roses are blooming in Metro-Land just as they do in the brochures.

Steam took us onwards,
through the ripening fields,
Ripe for development.
Where the landscape yields
Clay for warm brick,
timber for post and rail
Through Amersham to
Aylesbury and the Vale.
In those wet fields the railway didn't pay.
The Metro stops at Amersham to-day.

[Standing and leaning on a bridge] Where are the advertisements? Where the shopping arcade, the coal merchant and the parked cars? This is a part of the Metropolitan Railway that's been entirely forgotten. Beyond Aylesbury it lies in flat fields with huge elms and distant blue hills.

External links

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John Betjeman