John Betjeman RIP

Betjeman reconsidered, forty years after his death

It is forty years since dear old John Betjeman died. When his centenary (2006) was approaching, his daughter Candida asked me to write his biography, which I did, with great trepidation. As the years go by, one revises one’s views of everything and everyone – or I do, at least. I idolized Betjeman when I was a young man. He seemed to be everything I admired – Anglo-Catholic, muddled, a poet, a champion of threatened architecture, especially Victorian architecture. Now… I still love him, and much of his verse is in my head. But…what do I think?