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John Betjeman

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John Betjeman (1906–1984) 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. Starting his career as a journalist, he ended it as British Poet Laureate and a much loved figure on British television.

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 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, Germany more than a century before, setting up their home and business in Islington, London.

Betjemans's early schooling was at the local Byron House and Highgate School after which he boarded at the Dragon School preparatory school in North 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. Betjeman had a poem published in Isis, a university magazine, and was editor of another student newspaper 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. Betjeman was finally sent down at the end of Michaelmas Term 1928. 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.

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.

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.

In 1939, Betjeman was rejected for active service in World War II 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 was born while they were in Dublin.

After World War II Betjeman began to drift apart from his wife. In 1951, he met 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.

He became Poet Laureate in 1972. From that year until his death he lived 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.

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

Books
Trains and Buttered Toast
Summoned by Bells Betjeman's autobiography in verse
The Illustrated Summoned by Bells
The Best Loved Poems of John Betjeman
Collected Poems
Illustrated Poems of John Betjeman
Faith And Doubt of John Betjeman: An Anthology of Betjeman's Religious Verse

John Betjeman New Fame New Love Biography by Bevis Hillier

More books on or by Betjeman

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