JOHN BETJEMAN'S SCHOOLDAYS
SIR,—Betjeman! Name seems familiar. Let me see —eighty, ninety years ago? Yes, I've placed him. A pestiferous little fellow, if ever there was one. One thing I remember clearly. Never an essay came from Betjeman's pen but he inveighed against the school bell-tower, calling it a `puginistic horror' and a 'preposterous neo-Gothic pimple.' Do you blame me for shouting in exasperation : 'Betjeman, you're showing off!'? And when the offending tower was removed (not, I hasten to explain, at Betjeman's in- sistence, but as part of a rebuilding plan) he had the effrontery to form a School Preservation Society which issued leaflets abusing anyone who dared to 'tamper with our esthetic heritage,' or some such phrase. He's absolutely right in one thing. He was a masochist! He wanted me to pull his ears and I flatly refused.
Invite him to tea? No, Sir! He would have in- sulted the architecture of my wife's cakes and then called the rest of us barbarians for spoiling the fruit cake.—Yours faithfully, IIENJAMIN`ATKINS'
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