Betjeman Page 31
Bron’s widow Teresa … Conversation with author, July 2005
pronounced by Powell ‘Sar-deest’ … Conversation with author
Isn’t it nice that Penelope should be immortalised … BP, Bowra to JB, 19 October 1950
The Empress loses interest in such things … Waugh, Letters, p. 218
I am beginning to find that there is a lot to be said for sham half-timber … CLG I, p. 412
He wrote urging Waugh to come to Farnborough … CLG I, p. 418
Just my subject and just my writer … CLG I, p. 430
What a wonderful book HELENA is … CLG I, p. 520
I must write to tell you what I find myself doing … CLG I, p. 438
What I cannot believe … Waugh, Letters, p. 245
Those were the days when that divine baroque … SB
If you accept an absurdity … Waugh, Letters, p. 244
Dearest Evelyn, I am very grateful … ibid.
Betjeman delivered a Christmas Message … Waugh, Letters, p. 247
Oi know oi was ysterical … BP, PB to JB, 29 October 1950
Dear Evelyn was never very high-brow … BP, Bowra to JB, 29 October 1950
Before 1948, everything was all right … Paul Betjeman to author, November 2005
Like Penelope Betjeman, Anne Barnes … Anthony Barnes to author, 22 February 2006
Betjeman became a frequent guest … Anthony Barnes to author, 22 February 2006
John seems very fond of that South African boy … BP, JB to John Piper
You really are an angel … BP, Diana Mosley to JB, 24 May 1946
The public seem very willing to buy it … BP, Sir Oswald Mosley to JB, 16 January 1947
A book printed by ‘Mosley Publications Limited’ … ibid.
old Comper has certainly not gone out of his way … BP, Charles Peers to JB, 3 May 1950
lost in admiration … BP, P. Morton Shand to JB, 3 January 1950
John Summerson went into the RIBA canteen … BP, John Summerson to JB, 5 January 1950
very sad it will be for Penelope … CLG I, p. 517
Woad was very please [sic] oi went ter the garden party boot … BP, PB to JB, Friday [date?] 1950
CHAPTER TEN
DEFECTIONS
I have the most beautiful secretary … BP, JB to T.S. Eliot, 1 May 1951
Jill Menzies ‘is very pure’ … BP, JB to Anne Barnes, 11 August 1951
She is a very clever girl … BP, JB to John Guest, 2 October 1956
I think I was getting too fond of him … CLG II, p. 14, quoted HILLIER II, p. 501
sex ‘only as a means of procreation’ … Harry Jarvis interview with CLG
from 1953 for over a decade … Richard Ingrams, Muggeridge: The Biography, HarperCollins, 1995, p. 170
JB was very flattered … CLG II, p. 9
Is it not time you gave your heart a rest? … ibid.
just an upper class nanny … In conversation with Richard Ingrams. She used much the same language to me.
He made a brief plunge to Rome … Rose Macaulay, Last Letters to a Friend, Collins, 1962, p. 79
I love the Bog villa and also the people … BP, 25 May 1954
just an escape for JB … BP, Alan Pryce-Jones to CLG, scribbled during the 1980s on a letter of JB’s dated 22 August 1953
Do I stand between you … BP, JB to Alan Pryce-Jones, 22 August 1953
Antonia Pakenham … Antonia Fraser to author, 2006
Osbert Lancaster, one of Betjeman’s closest friends … Osbert Lancaster to Richard Ingrams
Darlin Tewpie oi AVE got confidence … BL Add. MS 71648
We must have this … CLG II, p. 3
The Roman Catholics were not taking part, ‘and we … BP, JB to T.S. Eliot, 14 May 1951
The Archbishop – Ice creams – John Betjeman … BP, Earl Ferrers to JB, 28 September 1953
When I asked the Dowager Duchess … CLG II, p. 42
Nooni nooni nooni noewke … BP, JB to Penelope, 28 November 1953
When I’m depressed, Mr Rowse … A.L. Rowse to author
As they gathered round the wireless … Elizabeth Cavendish to author, 27 October 2005
Moucher took to Betjeman immediately … Deborah Devonshire to author, 24 October 2005
Dear, feeble, pale, soft-spoken Elizabeth … Letter at Chatsworth
Stevenage New Town in the rainy afternoon … CLG II, p. 42
HORRIFIED … This is not a personal matter with me … BP, JB to Alan Pryce-Jones, 22 August 1953
A very long letter written by Barnes … BP, from Director General of Television, 31 July 1951
Though Anne Barnes was Betjeman’s confidante … Anthony Barnes to author, 22 February 2006
Oi habsolutely realise naow that the Anglican Church … BL Add. MS 71649
A great brain has made this place … BBC written archives, 12 May 1952
having decorated the house with rich wallpapers … CLG II, p. 3
Well, my dear fellow, all I can say … BP, Evelyn Waugh to JB, 16 November 1957
Oh no, old boy … CLG II, p. 47
Among the paranoid fantasies … Evelyn Waugh, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold, Penguin, 1951, p. 83
He had made no new friends in late years … Waugh, Pinfold, p. 14
Betjeman has flu … The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, ed. Charlotte Mosley, Houghton Mifflin, 1997, p. 244
It was remarkably kind of you to come to Ascot … BP, Evelyn Waugh to JB, Whit Sunday 1955
At a certain point … Paul Betjeman to author, November 2005
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MINDFUL OF THE CHURCH’S TEACHING
Soon after he moved to Cloth Fair … CLG II, p. 108
This reads the same backwards … CLG II, p. 224
As was always to be the case, Betjeman found his temper fraying … CLG II, p. 72
it is a token of how famous … CLG to author
Miss Howson, the stained glass artist … JB to Roy Plomley, St Swithin’s Day, author’s collection
Those who met Betjeman during those early years … William Glenton, Tony’s Room: The Love Story of Princess Margaret, NewYork Pocket Books, 1965, p. 109
She found that Betjeman had signed a ‘repairing lease’ … HILLIER II, p. 471
at least two fascinating biographies and at least one fictitious exploration … The biographies are by Robin Denniston and by Piers McGrandle. The fictitious account, much altered, and with other priests contributing to the composite Huddleston-figure, is in my novel My Name is Legion, Hutchinson, 2004. See also the fascinating chapter on Huddleston in Eric James’s The House of My Friends, Continuum, 2005
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE … BP, Penelope to Jack Beddington, 3 August 1956
John, in his new role as nouveau riche … BP, Penelope to Jack Beddington, Bank Holiday 1958
Yew az poured 1 doz … BP, Penelope to JB undated
Penelope says it is very middle class … BP, JB to Anita Dent, 20 April 1957
I am pretty hot on ecclesiastical … BP, Victoria Dennistoun to JB, 11 May 1958
Have you done it yet? … Lady Oaksey to author, August 2005
I always suspected it was the cause of the fire … CLG II, p. 109
Oh, how jolly! This is going to be fun! … Glenton, Tony’s Room, p. 33
The second time, she succeeded … Glenton, Tony’s Room, p. 40
It was even said … that Elizabeth had helped … Alastair Forbes told me he had it from Betjeman himself that he (Betjeman) and Elizabeth had told the princess to add the phrase about ‘mindful of the Church’s teaching’.
‘Don’t buy my collected verse’, he urged R.S. Thomas … Author’s collection, 22 December 1958
How nice of you to write to me … CLG II, p. 161
Betjeman was continually hard on him … Paul Betjeman to author, 18 November 2005
I go to London for telly on Sunday … CLG II, p. 126
LENTEN THOUGHT … BL Add. MS 71649
I long to see you and Wanta
ge again … CLG II, p. 123
Darling Tewps, If you won’t come down for Christmas … BL Add. MS 71648 ff. 93–4
Dear feeble Elizabeth and I … CLG II, p. 113
One of his closest confidants … Typed transcript of interview with CLG
she wrote to a country neighbour … BP, PB to Michael Astor, 11 December 1961
I love Stoke-on-Trent … CLG II, p. 89
I could not face Keele without her … CLG II, p. 186
My dear Commander … CLG II, p. 174
Like sorrow it goes in waves … CLG II, p. 186
Though she never would admit it … CLG II, p. 192
Alas I can’t possibly believe … BP, Anne Barnes to JB, 17 September 1960
CHAPTER TWELVE
SUMMONED BY BELLS
Jim Knapp-Fisher has died … CLG II, p. 519
It is so hard to believe it is all over … BP, William Wicklow to JB, 3 October 1958
Artificial genuineness … Compare ‘Approval of what is approved of / Is as false as a well-kept vow’ in ‘The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel’
Some know for all their lives … SB
The secret of a man’s nature … J.A. Froude Thomas Carlyle: A History of the first Forty Years of his Life, 1795 – 1835, Longman, Green and Co., 1896, Vol. 1, p.89
Wibz has been misbehaving in Florence … BL Add. MS 71648
Important … ibid.
Yew KNOW I have only to sit down by a warm fire … BL Add. MS 71648
After a first printing of 80,000 … John Murray Archives, quoted HILLIER III, p. 102
Tear-in-the-eye whimsicality … Both reviews are quoted in HILLIER III, p. 104
It was left to Philip Larkin … Required Writing, Faber, 1983, p. 131
much gentler and quieter than I expected … CLG II, p. 201
So permanent and black and true … Andrew Motion, Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life, Faber, 1993, p. 347
He enjoyed it when … Philip Larkin to author
like a dark-haired Stephen Spender … JB to R.S. Thomas, author’s collection
The Happiest evenings I ever Spent … CLG II, p. 103
Oh, thank you, thank you for your succinct … JB to R.S. Thomas, author’s collection
Treen of all houses … CLG II, p. 171
I absolutely understand about E … BL Add. MS 71648
Mr Betjeman was the ideal … CLG II, p. 204
‘Yes’, a girl in ABC make-up … CLG II, p. 205
like Polzeath laid out on a grid system … CLG II, p. 220
Aussieland is much nicer … CLG II, p. 223
It’s odd that I should travel … CLG II, p. 222
He told R.S. Thomas … Author’s collection
For example, he was friends … Caroline Dawnay to author
I realise, he wrote to Edward Hornby … CLG II, p. 102
Dr Johnson said a man should keep … The remark was made to Joshua Reynolds in 1775 (Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Oxford University Press, 1957, p. 214)
Now what was the name of that music-hall … Sunday Times, 8 July 1962, quoted in HILLIER III, p. 364
‘And did you’, asked Betj … ‘The Lost Betjemans’, ‘Bristol My Home’, HTV, 1994
There’ll never be another … John Osborne, Almost a Gentleman, 1991, p. 243
My dear old Top, Betjeman wrote to Osborne … CLG II, p. 280
Secretly proud, I showed off merrily … SB
on horseback among the jeep-infested … CLG II, p. 276
for Elizabeth there was the grief … Harry Jarvis interview with CLG
After all the poverty you must be seeing in India … CLG II, p. 277
I feel very sad today … JB to R.S. Thomas, 4 January 1965, author’s collection
Darling Dadz and Liz … BL Add. MS 71653, innumerable letters
After National Service … This and all subsequent information about Paul emerged in conversation, November 2005, in NewYork.
He is a wonderful fellow … JB to R.S. Thomas, 21 December 1967, author’s collection
while your son is disillusioned … JB to R.S. Thomas, 4 January 1965, author’s collection
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LAST YEARS IN CLOTH FAIR
In very early January 1966 … CLG II, p. 300
When Jonathan Stedall asked him … Time with Betjeman, Episode One, quoted HILLIER III, p. 532
Betjeman had in fact first met Harry Jarvis … BP, Harry Jarvis to CLG
My love to the Smasher … BP, JB to Harry Jarvis, 28 August 1969
I offered the Mass for you today … BP, Harry Jarvis to JB, 28 September 1968
Feeble is OK but v pressing … BP, JB to Harry Jarvis, 13 January 1965
I had a horrid dream … CLG II, p. 315
could think of little else … CLG II, p. 311
The 1964 book found far more … Cornwall: A Shell Guide, 1964 p. 39 and passim
I got a salary of £800 … BP, JB to John Piper, 7 February 1965
the local authorities who may use Shell … ibid.
Meanwhile, the proper Shell guides … BP, JB to John Piper, 10 February 1966
The reason I can’t go on with … BP, JB to John Piper, 11 March 1966
Gabble, gabble, gabble … BP, JB to Harry Jarvis, 2 March 1965
One of the many committees … Eric James to author, 2005
Opportunities to ‘assemble my ideas’ … BP, JB to Harry Jarvis, 22 February 1966
I cannot recommend Jerusalem … CLG II, p. 325
This memorial to Sir Walter Scott … HILLIER III, p. 262
Oh but you are the one true church … Helen Gardner to author
Young William … HILLIER III, p. 261
The birds are all killed and the flowers are all dead … CLG II, p. 317
‘Often’ wrote Bernard Levin … Bernard Levin, The Pendulum Years, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970
Betjeman called him ‘bad Simon’ … HILLIER III, p. 315
DOWN WITH GRACIOUS LIVING … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB, ‘Soonday’ some time in the mid-1960s. Gerard Irvine was sometime vicar of Cranford, a parish near Heathrow Airport.
I wish I were in England … BL Add. MS 71656 A f4
the 1847 bit which needs a roof lift … BP, letter from JB to Harry Jarvis, 1 April 1967
He claimed to think highly of her poem … Richard Ingrams to author
I have met him twice, dining with Harry Williams … JB to R.S. Thomas, 22 December 1968, author’s collection
It is of great help in restaurants … JB to Roy Plomley, author’s collection
I got a rather delightful thing … BP, JB to Harry Jarvis, 29 January 1970
We are all four very happy … CLG II, p. 421
When they got to Tasmania … Margaret McCall interview with HILLIER III, p. 301
GO AWAY! GO AWAY! … Ibid.
The latent sadism in the human race … CLG II, p. 425
Betjeman was tired and drunk … Julian Jebb to author shortly after returning from this trip to Australia
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE MISTRESS
most unbecoming in the Archbishop … James Lees-Milne, 29 June 1984
As I am sure you know … Pusey House Archives, quoted HILLIER III, p. 589
We can ave er ealth food week tergether … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB, April or May 1975
I miss Penelope … BP, JB to Harry Jarvis, 13 August 1972
It is reediculous that she cannot … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB, undated
I am now very nearly in 29 Radnor Walk … CLG II, p. 465
Alfred Austin is my favourite laureate after Eusden … Letter to Roy Plomley, author’s collection
In a sense Betjeman was Poet Laureate already … Quoted CLG II, p. 438
I have become so public and overexposed that I am dry … JB to R.S. Thomas, author’s collection
Oh Gosh, thanks. Reading a book … John Guest to author, 1978
Betjeman sat with a slightly goofy, froglike look … John Gaskell
to author, 2005
Bloody plastic! … John Gaskell to author, 2005
I love the Grosvenor Chapel and its plentiful incense … JB to John Gaskell, 10 September 1973 and 6 February 1974
With John Guest, Harry Williams … John Guest to author, 1978
For your information, I never went to bed … BP, JB to Auberon Waugh, 6 December 1973
He had once remarked to Osbert Lancaster … Richard Ingrams to author, 2005
Dear Bron, I very much enjoyed yesterday’s luncheon … BP, JB to Auberon Waugh, 13 February 1975
This is the sort of publicity … BP, JB to Anthony House, BBC, 28 February 1975
As they entered the modernistic restaurant … ‘I’m just a pop poet’ … Quoted to the author by Canon John Lucas, 1975
Parker remembered Betjeman’s indifference … HILLIER III, p. 481
Every Anglican priest … JB, reprinted in Coming Home, ed. Candida Lycett Green, Methuen, 1997, p. 516
And though for church … ibid., p. 521
For moi birthday oi would VERY … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB, 3 February 1975
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LOVE IS EVERYTHING
I am writing to you to see if we cannot work out … CLG II, p. 240
Harry Williams and Philip Larkin … Philip Larkin to author, 1983
John was very difficult to live with … James Lees-Milne, The Milk of Paradise, John Murray, 2005, p. 174
With Harry Williams and John Guest … John Guest to author, 1979
When Richard Ingrams called on him … Richard Ingrams to author, 24 October 2005
I have been in King’s College Hospital … BL, JB to John Sparrow, 21 February 1977
Jonathan Stedall has now said … CLG II, p. 554
Thirty years after this painful episode … Conversation between author and Paul Betjeman, NewYork, 6 November 2005
Penelope went over to NewYork … and reported … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB, 20 March 1974
IT IS WONDERFUL NOT BEING … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB, 24 August 2003
Powlie’s birthday … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB
In 1977, however … CLG II, p. 516
When I met Lily Betjeman … Lily Betjeman to author, Port Isaac, August 2003
Paul smilingly said to me … 6 November 2005
I have been staying at St Michael’s College … CLG II, p. 263
once, when Penelope had been … Lees-Milne, Milk of Paradise, p. 174
Plymmie would like to be friends with her … BP, Penelope Betjeman to JB, undated
Candida had the delicate task … CLG to author, October 2005