I am taking a week's break in France - "Gay Paree" and "Naughty but Nice".

So there will be no more blogs until October 1st at the earliest.

Thank you for your support, particularly over the past few months when 'hits' have often exceeded 400 a day.

Please come back when I come back.

I just wish I could take you all with me for a 'Big Party'!

I am sure many of you have watched on TV 'Carols From Kings', which is broadcast every Christmas Eve from King's College Chapel, Cambridge.

Betjeman takes us back to King's on a Sunday morning.

SUNDAY MORNING, KING'S CAMBRIDGE

File into yellow candle light, fair choristers of King's
Lost in the shadowy silence of canopied Renaissance stalls
In blazing glass above the dark glow skies and thrones and wings
Blue, ruby, gold and green between the whiteness of the walls
And with what rich precision the stonework soars and springs
To fountain out a spreading vault - a shower that never falls.

The white of windy Cambridge courts, the cobbles brown and dry,
The gold of plaster Gothic with ivy overgrown,
The apple-red, the silver fronts, the wide green flats and high,
The yellowing elm-trees circled out on islands of their own -
Oh, here behold all colours change that catch the flying sky
To waves of pearly light that heave along the shafted stone.

In far East Anglian churches, the clasped hands lying long
Recumbent on sepulchral slabs or effigied in brass
Buttress with prayer this vaulted roof so white and light and strong
And countless congregations as the generations pass
Join choir and great crowned organ case, in centuries of song
To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass.

John Betjeman

Here is another of Betjeman's 'Word Pictures' - about an old lady passing her final days in what we would nowadays probably call an 'Old People's Home' or 'Hospice'.

HOUSE OF REST

Now all the world she knew is dead
In this small room she lives her days
The wash-hand stand and single bed
Screened from the public gaze.

The horse-brass shines, the kettle sings,
The cup of China tea
Is tasted among cared-for things
Ranged round for me to see -

Lincoln, by Valentine and Co.,
Now yellowish brown and stained,
But there some fifty years ago
Her Harry was ordained;

Outside the Church at Woodhall Spa
The smiling groom and bride,
And here's his old tobacco jar
Dried lavender inside.

I do not like to ask if he
Was "High" or "Low" or "Broad"
Lest such a question seem to be
A mockery of Our Lord.

Her full grey eyes look far beyond
The little room and me
To village church and village pond
And ample rectory.

She sees her children each in place
Eyes downcast as they wait,
She hears her Harry murmur Grace,
Then heaps the porridge plate.

Aroused at seven, to bed by ten,
They fully lived each day,
Dead sons, so motor-bike-mad then,
And daughters far away.

Now when the bells for Eucharist
Sound in the Market Square,
With sunshine struggling through the mist
And Sunday in the air,

The veil between her and her dead
Dissolves and shows them clear,
The Consecration Prayer is said
And all of them are near.

John Betjeman

P.S. "Valentine and Co" were publishers of picture postcards and Lincoln a cathedral city in eastern England - not the 16th President of the United States!

This poem about the death of a working-class woman is set in wartime Britain, or the period immediately after.

The references to Timothy White's, McIlroy's, InTernational, MaFisherie and Freeman's relate to well-known retail stores of the time now, unfortunately, replaced by supermarkets.

VARIATION ON A THEME BY T.W. ROLLESTON

Under the ground, on a Saturday afternoon in winter
Lies a mother of five,
And frost has bitten the purple November rose flowers
Which budded when she was alive.

They have switched on the street lamps here by the cemet'ry railing;
In the dying afternoon
Men from football, and women from Timothy White's and McIlroy's
Will be coming teawards soon.

But her place is empty in the queue at the International,
The greengrocer's queue lacks one,
So does the crowd at MacFisheries. There's no one to go to Freeman's
To ask if the shoes are done.

Will she, who was so particular, be glad to know that after
The tears, the prayers and the priest,
Her clothing coupons and ration book were handed in at the Food Office
For the files marked "deceased " ?

John Betjeman

Thomas William Hazen Rolleston (1857 – 1920) was an Irish writer, literary figure and translator, known as a poet but publishing over a wide range of literary and political topics.

I cannot find the theme to which Betjeman refers in his title. Can anyone elucidate?

The road on which this accident happened is about 15 minutes from where I live.

MORTALITY

The first-class brains of a senior civil servant
Shiver and shatter and fall
As the steering column of his comfortable Humber
Batters in the bony wall.
All those delicate re-adjustments

"On the one hand, if we proceed
With the ad hoc policy hitherto adapted
To individual need...
On the other hand, too rigid an arrangement
Might, of itself, perforce...
I would like to submit for the Minister's concurrence
The following alternative course,
Subject to revision and reconsideration
In the light of our experience gains..."

And this had to happen at the corner where the by-pass
Comes into Egham out of Staines.
That very near miss for an All Souls' Fellowship
The recent compensation of a 'K' -
The first-class brains of a senior civil servant
Are sweetbread on the road today.

John Betjeman

P.S. Prized by gourmets throughout the world, sweetbreads are the thymus glands of veal, young beef, lamb and pork.

OUR PADRE

Our padre is an old sky pilot,
Severely now they've clipped his wings,
But still the flagstaff in the Rect'ry garden
Points to Higher Things.

Still he has got a hearty handshake;
Still he wears his medals and a stole;
His voice would reach to Heaven, and make
The Rock of Ages Roll.

He's too sincere to join the high church
Worshipping idols for the Lord,
And, though the lowest church is my church,
Our padre's Broad.

Our padre is an old sky pilot,
He's tied a reef knot round my heart,
We'll be rocked up to Heaven on a rare old tune -
Come on - take part!

CHORUS
(Sung)

Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore!
Heed not the raging billow, bend to the oar!
Bend to the oar before the padre!
Proud, with the padre rowing stroke!
Good old padre! God for the services!
Row like smoke!

John Betjeman

Perhaps he was a fan!

SKY PILOT

He blesses the boys, as they stand in line
The smell of gun grease and their bayonets they shine
He's there to help them all that he can
To make them feel wanted he's a good holy man
Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You'll never, never, never, reach the sky

He smiles at the young soldiers, tells them it's all right
He knows of their fear in the forthcoming fight
Soon there'll be blood and many will die
Mothers and fathers back home they will cry

You're soldiers of God you must understand
The fate of your country is in your young hands
May God give you strength
Do your job well
If it all was worth it
Only time it will tell

Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You'll never, never, never, reach the sky

He mumbles a prayer and it ends with a smile
The order is given, they move down the line
But he'll stay behind, and he'll meditate
But it won't stop the bleeding, or ease the hate

As the young men move out into the battle zone
He feels good, with God you're never alone
He feels so tired as he lays on his bed
Hopes the men will find courage in the words that he said

Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You'll never, never, never, reach the sky

In the morning they return with tears in their eyes
The stench of death lifts up to the skies
A young soldier so ill, looks at the Sky Pilot
Remembers the words 'Thou shalt not kill'.

Sky Pilot
Sky Pilot
How high can you fly?
You'll never, never, never, reach the sky.

P.S. Wikepedia states:

"Sky Pilot" - A dismissive or critical nickname for a religious figure who counsels passive acceptance of unfair or difficult life circumstances. Specifically, one who is seen to be aiding existing social structures by using religion to suppress dissent.

In his latter years Betjeman was somewhat obsessed with his own mortality.

However, it finishes morbidly with JB contemplating his death in the "Cottage Hospital"

THE COTTAGE HOSPITAL

At the end of a long-walled garden
in a red provincial town,
A brick path led to a mulberry -
scanty grass at its feet.
I lay under blackening branches
where the mulberry leaves hung down
Sheltering ruby fruit globes
from a Sunday-tea-time heat.
Apple and plum espaliers
basked upon bricks of brown;
The air was swimming with insects,
and children played in the street.

Out of this bright intentness
into the mulberry shade
Musca domestica (housefly)
swung from the August light
Slap into slithery rigging
by the waiting spider made
Which spun the lithe elastic
till the fly was shrouded tight.
Down came the hairy talons
and horrible poison blade
And none of the garden noticed
that fizzing, hopeless fight.

Say in what Cottage Hospital
whose pale green walls resound
With the tap upon polished parquet
of inflexible nurses' feet
Shall I myself be lying
when they range the screens around?
And say shall I groan in dying,
as I twist the sweaty sheet?
Or gasp for breath uncrying,
as I feel my senses drown'd
While the air is swimming with insects
and children play in the street?

John Betjeman

Enjoy Betjeman's depiction of "The Queen Of The Girls At The 'Drome", who is aiming high - An Air Vice-Marshall, no less!

STATION SYREN

She sat with a Warwick Deeping,
Her legs curl'd round in a ring,
Like a beautiful panther sleeping,
Yet always ready to spring.

Tweed on her well-knit torso,
Silk on each big strong leg,
An officer's lady and more so
Than those who buy off the peg.

More cash than she knew of for spending
As a Southgate girl at home,
For there's crooning and clinging unending
For the queen of the girls at the 'drome.

Beautiful brown eyes burning
Deep on the Deeping page,
Beautiful dark hair learning
Coiffuring tricks of the age.

Negligent hand for holding
A Flight-Lieutenant at bay,
Petulant lips for scolding
And kissing the trouble away.

But she isn't exactly partial
To any of that sort of thing,
So maybe the Air Vice-Marshal
Will buy her a Bravington ring.

John Betjeman

Here is another of Betjeman's descriptions of the female of the species.

Nevertheless, it is a charming picture of 'Eunice' leaving her little summer bungalow in Kent and returning to her boring office job in London.

Tunbridge Wells Central Station

EUNICE

With her latest roses happily encumbered
Tunbridge Wells Central takes her from the night,
Sweet second bloomings frost has faintly umbered
And some double dahlias waxy red and white.

Shut again till April stands her little hutment
Peeping over daisies Michaelmas and mauve,
Lock'd is the Elsan in its brick abutment
Lock'd the little pantry, dead the little stove.

Keys with Mr. Groombridge, but nobody will take them
To her lonely cottage by the lonely oak,
Potatoes in the garden but nobody to bake them,
Fungus in the living room and water in the coke.

I can see her waiting on this chilly Sunday
For the five forty (twenty minutes late),
One of many hundreds to dread the coming Monday
To fight with influenza and battle with her weight.

Tweed coat and skirt that with such anticipation
On a merry spring time a friend had trimm'd with fur,
Now the friend is married and, oh desolation,
Married to the man who might have married her.

High in Onslow Gardens where the soot flakes settle
An empty flat is waiting her struggle up the stair
And when she puts the wireless on, the heater and the kettle
It's cream and green and cosy, but home is never there.

Home's here in Kent and how many morning coffees
And hurried little lunch hours of planning will be spent
Through the busy months of typing in the office
Until the days are warm enough to take her back to Kent.

John Betjeman

For a few days we have been looking at Betjeman's attitude to women.

But his passion obviously produced feelings of guilt, as evidenced by today's offering.

SENEX

Oh would I could subdue the flesh
Which sadly troubles me!
And then perhaps could view the flesh
As though I never knew the flesh
And merry misery.

To see the golden hiking girl
With wind about her hair,
The tennis-playing, biking girl,
The wholly-to-my-liking girl,
To see and not to care.

At sundown on my tricycle
I tour the Borough's edge,
And icy as an icicle
See bicycle by bicycle
Stacked waiting in the hedge.

Get down from me! I thunder there,
You spaniels! Shut your jaws!
Your teeth are stuffed with underwear,
Suspenders torn asunder there
And buttocks in your paws!

Oh whip the dogs away my Lord,
They make me ill with lust.
Bend bare knees down to pray, my Lord,
Teach sulky lips to say, my Lord,
That flaxen hair is dust.

John Betjeman

Note: "Senex", in literature, especially comedy, refers to an old man as a stock figure.

I have already commented that Betjeman liked the lusty, busty, sporty type of girl.

Here he is again extolling the virtues of the athletic "Olympic Girl".

THE OLYMPIC GIRL

The sort of girl I like to see
Smiles down from her great height at me.
She stands in strong, athletic pose
And wrinkles her retroussé nose.
Is it distaste that makes her frown,
So furious and freckled, down
On an unhealthy worm like me?
Or am I what she likes to see?
I do not know, though much I care,
xxxxxxxx…..would I were
(Forgive me, shade of Rupert Brooke)
An object fit to claim her look.
Oh! would I were her racket press'd
With hard excitement to her breast
And swished into the sunlit air
Arm-high above her tousled hair,
And banged against the bounding ball
"Oh! Plung!" my tauten'd strings would call,
"Oh! Plung! my darling, break my strings
For you I will do brilliant things."
And when the match is over, I
Would flop beside you, hear you sigh;
And then with what supreme caress,
You'd tuck me up into my press.
Fair tigress of the tennis courts,
So short in sleeve and strong in shorts,
Little, alas, to you I mean,
For I am bald and old and green.

John Betjeman

Windlesham Church

Betjeman often appears to express a longing to be mastered by large, athletic women!

In this poem he begins by admiring Pam (a nanny?) as she pushes a pram through the Surrey countryside.

He eulogises over her playing tennis and, in the final verse, imagines himself marrying her, while we look on.

POT POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN

Miles of pram in the wind and Pam in the gorse track,
Coco-nut smell of the broom. and a packet of Weights
Press'd in the sand. The thud of a hoof on a horse-track -
Conifer county of Surrey approached
Through remarkable wrought-iron gates.

Over your boundary now, I wash my face in a bird-bath,
Then which path I shall take? that over there by the pram?
Down by the pond! or - yes, I will take the slippery path,
Trodden away with gym shoes,
Beautiful fir-dry alley that leads
To the bountiful body of Pam.

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.

See the strength of her arm, as firm and hairy as Hendren's;
See the size of her thighs, the pout of her lips as, cross,
And full of pent-up strength, she swipes at the rhododendrons,
Lucky the rhododendrons,
And flings her arrogant love-lock
Back with a petulant toss.

Over the redolent pinewoods, in at the bathroom casement,
One fine Saturday, Windlesham bells shall call,
Up the Butterfield aisle, rich with Gothic enlacement,
Licensed now for embracement,
Pam and I, as the organ
Thunders over you all.

John Betjeman

Notes: Player's "Weights" were a popular brand of cheap cigarette.

"Hendren" (Elias Henry Hendren - 'Patsy' ) was a cricket hero of the 1920s, who also played tennis.

Do you like licorice?

John Betjeman did; He also liked strong sturdy women, as shown in today's poem.

Pontefract Cakes

THE LICORICE FIELDS AT PONTEFRACT

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 light and dangling licorice flowers
Gave off the sweetest smells;
From various black Victorian towers
The Sunday evening bells
Came pealing over dales and hills
And tanneries and silent mills
And lowly streets where country stops
And little shuttered corner shops.

She cast her blazing eyes on me
And plucked a licorice leaf;
I was her captive slave and she
My red-haired robber chief.
Oh love! for love I could not speak,
It left me winded, wilting, weak,
And held in brown arms strong and bare
And wound with flaming ropes of hair.

John Betjeman

Pontefract Cakes, these round liquorice sweets with the imprint of the local castle, have been popular for hundreds of years.

Once upon a time they were only made in Pontefract in West Yorkshire. Although this is no longer the case some are still nonetheless manufactured in the town itself and visitors can still catch that sweet smell on the air.

A word of warning - Don't eat too many - they are a powerful laxative!

P.S. The correct English spelling is "liquorice"

As promised yesterday, here is Gerard Hoffnung's monologue about a bricklayer and a barrel of bricks.

THE BRICKLAYER'S LAMENT

By Gerard Hoffnung
(From his Oxford Union speech)

I've got this thing here that I must read to you.

Now, this is a very tragic thing... I shouldn't, really, read it out.

A striking lesson in keeping the upper lip stiff is given in a recent number of the weekly bulletin of 'The Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors' that prints the following letter from a bricklayer in Golders Green to the firm for whom he works.

Respected Sir,

Gerard Hoffnung (1925 - 1959) was an artist and musician, best known for his humorous works.

He achieved fame as a cartoonist, tubist, impresario, broadcaster and public speaker and he was a much sought after speaker at the Oxford and Cambridge Unions.

Hoffnung published a series of books of cartoons poking gentle fun at conductors and orchestral instrumentalists.

More Betjeman tomorrow

Do your remember 'Lift Men' (In America called 'Elevator Attendants' or 'Operators')?

They have been phased out over the years, since lifts have become fully automatic.

However, at one time they were a common sight, particularly in the larger London department stores, such as Selfridges, Gamages and Libertys.

John Betjeman wrote this poem about a lift man, probably at Derry and Tom's (Barker's) in Kensington High Street, as it refers to a roof-garden.

The gardens there cover 1.5 acres and are split into three parts:

* A formal Spanish garden, in a Moorish style, with fountains, vine-covered walkways and Chusan palms;

* A Tudor style garden, with wisteria and roses;

* An English woodland garden, with over 100 species of trees, a stream, and a garden pond that is the home to some ducks and flamingos. Despite being on a rooftop, the trees were made the subject of tree preservation orders in 1976.

But I digress - on to the poem:

THE LIFT MAN

In uniform behold me stand,
The lovely lift at my command.
I press the button: Pop,
And down I go below the town;
The walls rise up as I go down
And in the basement stop.

For weeks I've worked a morning shift
On this old Waygood-Otis lift.
And goodness, don't I love
To press the knob that shuts the gate
When customers are shouting 'Wait!'
And soar to floors above.

I see them from my iron cage,
Their faces looking up in rage,
And then I call 'First floor!'
'Perfume and ladies' underwear!
'No sir, Up only. Use the stair.'
And up again we soar.

The second floor for kiddie goods,
And kiddie-pantz and pixie-hoods,
The third floor, restaurant:
And here the people always try
To find one going down, so I
Am not the lift they want.

On the roof-garden floor alone
I wait for ages on my own
High, high above the crowds.
O let them rage and let them ring,
For I am out of everything,
Alone among the clouds.

John Betjeman

Betjeman wrote this poem for Gerard Hoffnung, who is famous for his monologue "The Bricklayer's Story", which I will post here tomorrow.

THOUGHTS IN A TRAIN

No doubt she is somebody's mistress,
With that Greta Garbo hair,
And she sits, mascara-lidded.
In the corner seat over there.

But why, if she's somebody's mistress,
Is she travelling up in a Third?
Her luggage is leather, not plastic,
Her jewelry rich and absurd.

'Oh I am nobody's mistress:
The jewels I wear, you see,
Were, like this leather luggage,
A present from Mummy to me.

'If you want to get on with the Government,
You've got to be like it, I've heard;
So I've booked my suite in the Ritz Hotel
And I'm travelling up in a Third.'

John Betjeman

I don't know how many of you Londoners know the Regent Palace Hotel, just off Piccadilly Circus and on the edge of Soho.

Such a person was Lilian, who has come down from Bootle in Lancashire (now Merseyside), with her friend Alice, for a little excitement!

THE FLIGHT FROM BOOTLE

Lonely in the Regent Palace,
Sipping her 'Banana Blush',
Lilian lost sight of Alice
In the honey-coloured rush.

Settled down at last from Bootle,
Alice whispered, "Just a min,
While I pop upstairs and rootle
For another safety pin."

Dreamy from the band pavilion
Drops of the 'Immortal Hour'
Fell around the lonely Lilian
Like an ineffectual shower.

Half an hour she sat and waited
In the honey-coloured lounge
Till she with herself debated,
"Time for me to go and scrounge!"

Time enough! or not enough time!
Lilian, you wait in vain;
Alice will not have a rough time,
Nor be quite the same again.

John Betjeman

About two weeks ago I posted here Betjemans's poem "Executive", which was about a young businessman:

I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner;
I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.

Today the theme is continued.

THE CITY

Businessmen with awkward hips
And dirty jokes upon their lips,
And large behinds and jingling chains,
And riddled teeth and riddling brains,
And plump white fingers made to curl
Round some anaemic city girl,
And so lend colour to heir lives
And old suspicions of their wives.

Young men who wear on office stools
The ties of minor public schools,
Each learning how to be a sinner
And tell a "good one" after dinner,
And so discover it is rather
Fun to go one more than father.
But father, son and and clerk join up
To talk about the Football Cup.

John Betjeman

CIVILISED WOMAN

The women who walk down Oxford Street
Have bird-like faces and brick-like feet;
Floppity flop go 'tens' and 'elevens'
Of Eesiphit into D.H. Evans.
The women who walk down Oxford Street
Suffer a lot frm nerves and heat,
But with Bovril, Tizer and Phosperine
They may all become what they might have been.
They gladly clatter with bag in hand
Out of the train from Metroland,
And gladly gape, when commerce calls,
At all the glory of plate-glass walls,
And gladly buy, till their bags are full,
"Milton' cleaner and 'Wolsey' wool,
'Shakespeare' cornflour, a 'Shelley' shirt,
'Brighto', 'Righto' and 'Moovyerdirt'.
Commerce pours on them gifts like rain;
Back in Metroland once again,
Wasn't it worth your weary feet -
The colourful bustle of Oxford Street?

John Betjeman

I am not sure whether John Betjeman ever met the flamboyant interior decorator and TV personality, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, best-known for his appearances on the BBC television programme Changing Rooms. It is very unlikely though, because LLB was only 19 when Betjeman died.

I am sure LLB particularly appreciated this poem, first published in the London Magazine in 1964, one year before he was born.

INTERIOR DECORATOR

Eternal youth is in his eyes;
Now he has freshened up his lips;
He slicks his hair and feigns surprise,
Then glances at his fingertips.

'My dears, but yes, of course I know
Though why you think of asking me
I can't imagine, even though
It rather is my cup of tea.

You see, my dears, I'm old - so old
I'll have to give myself away -
So don't be flattering when you're told -
But I was sixty yesterday.

And so, of course, I knew them all,
And I was with them when they went
To Basil's marvellous matelot ball
At Bedstead, somewhere down in Kent.

I was in decorating then
And Basil said the job was mine,
And, though I shouldn't say it, when
I'd finished, it was just divine.

A hideous house, inside and out -
And Basil's mother - well, not quite -
But still, I'll say for the old trout
She paid my little bill all right.

I stripped the hideous painted wood,
Stippled the the corridors and halls,
And pickled everything I could,
And scumbled nearly all the walls.

I put Red Ensigns on the seats
And hung Blue Peters down their backs,
And on the beds, instead of sheets,
Enormous pairs of Union Jacks.

My dears, just everyone was there -
But oh, how old it makes me feel
When I recall that charming pair
In matelot suits of eau de nil!

One was Kilcock, Clonbrassil's son,
Who died in nineteen thirty-three
(God rest his soul!), the other one -
Can you believe it - tiny me.

Bug Maxwell, Ropey, Rodney Park,
Peter Beckhampton, Georges de Hem,
Maria Madeleine de Sark -
I wonder what became of them?

Working in some department store -
That was the last I heard of Bug,
Ropey was always such a bore,
And didn't Rodney go to jug?

And Geoges de Hem collaborated,
So that's the last we'll hear of him!
And Pete and I, though we're related,
Are out of touch, now he's so dim.

And what's become of poor Maria?
Patrick, I'd like another drink.'
He gazes sadly at the fire,
And solemnly pretends to think.

Eternal age is in his eyes;
They watch the countless parties pass,
And, as the conversation dies,
His consolation is the glass.

John Betjeman

BACK FROM AUSTRALIA

Cocooned in Time, at this inhuman height,
The packaged food tastes neutrally of clay,
We never seem to catch the running day
But travel on in everlasting night
With all the chic accoutrements of flight:
Lotions and essences in neat array
And yet another plastic cup and tray.
"Thank you so much. Oh no, I'm quite all right".

At home in Cornwall hurrying autumn skies
Leave Bray Hill barren, Stepper jutting bare,
And hold the moon above the sea-wet sand.
The very last of late September dies
In frosty silence and the hills declare
How vast the sky is, looked at from the land.

John Betjeman