John Betjeman

Gavin Stamp

Icannot now remember why, but when first met John Betjeman we talked about that odd Edwardian Arts and Crafts ar- chitect, E. S. Prior, who had designed some interesting buildings at Harrow. 'Ah yes, Harrow... I was at Harrow... I think.' He was not, of course. John Summerson was, but Betjeman in fact spent his not especially happy schooldays at Marlborough, along with Anthony Blunt.

At the time, I did not immediately see the joke. I soon did. Everything for Betjeman was invested with a knowing and gently ironic humour. He exploited the curious fact that architects, unlike painters or com- posers, are intrinsically funny. Perhaps it is because they are usually such dull men. Ar- chitects' wives and widows are even fun- nier, and we had several ludicrous conversa- tions wondering what Mrs Aston Webb was like and whether Mrs Arnold Mitchell was 'still with us'. But he did not only laugh; he had a deep sympathy for and interest in the obscure and the odd. He delighted in the life and work of figures known only to Vic- torian Society cognoscenti: E. Bassett Keel- ing, Sir Horace Jones, W. H. Crossland, as well as Edwardians like Ninian Comper and Sir Aston Webb — for the last of whom he developed a great fondness in his later years. Perhaps he really liked Victorian ar- chitecture because it was (once) un- fashionable, for he had an instinctive sym- pathy for anything that is threatened or slightly pathetic or in decline.

'Who was Temple Moore?' asked the author of one of the first of doubtless many pedantic and insensitive books about Bet- jeman. Who indeed? But who can have any understanding of Betjeman's interests and achievement who does not want to in- vestigate that Edwardian Gothic Revivalist, who does not know and love churches, who has no sympathy for Anglicanism, that once vital and central aspect of English culture? In the future, copious footnotes may be needed to explain the references in Betjeman's poetry, but research is not enough. Indeed, Betjeman could not bear earnest researchers — by whom he was, of course, plagued — which may well be a pro- duct of his long and jealous feud with the late Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the original of the 'Herr-Professor-Doktors [who] are writing everything down for us, sometimes throwing in a little hurried pontificating too, so we need never bother to feel or think or see again'. And, naturally, those who worshipped Pevsner, who are happy to be 'spotty with foot and note disease', tend to dismiss Betjeman as lightweight and trivial.

Who has done more to popularise the cause of architecture in Britain in the last half-century: Pevsner or Betjeman? The question is interesting. Pevsner's achievements are clear; Betjeman's more nebulous. In 1968, his old friend 'Coolmore' — Sir John Summerson noted Betjeman's immense importance in the revaluation of Victorian architecture and had to conclude that 'his story... is a mystery of our times.' Betjeman's poetry, Summerson believes, which so poignantly evokes the Late Victorian and Edwardian world, is only partly responsible for the phenomenon and he has argued that Bet- jeman's significance lay in the inflation into national culture, or humour, of what was in the 1930s a private joke in the influential circle of the Architectural Review — for which Betjeman worked for a time.

It is certainly true that many of Bet- jeman's earliest writings on architecture begin from the premise that Victorian ar- chitecture was at once bad and funny. Although Hetton Abbey, the Victorian Gothic house in Evelyn Waugh's Handful of Dust of 1934, 'already... was referred to as "amusing",' and Betjeman was clearly the model for the 'very civil young man [who] had asked permission to photograph it for an architectural review', he was not a pioneer in the Victorian Revival in the way Robert Byron, Harold Acton and Waugh were at Oxford. Nor, at first, did he follow that true pioneer, Harry Goodhart-Rendel, in taking Victorian architecture perfectly seriously. This Betjeman only began to do in the late 1930s. In the early Shell Guides for instance — for whose invention as well as the quirky and imaginative typography Betjeman was responsible — most Vic- torian buildings and restorations are dismissed. But what is present is a remarkable sympathy for buildings a – places.

It cthoeovseyymtphaetchhyartahatterma quality and ad peculiarity of a building by evocation an by association. Betjeman can bring archi- tecture alive to so many who are immune the glamour of facts and dates. This is the strength of that odd and sometimes an. tradictory collection of essays which published as First and Last Loves in 1952,:.5 am happy to be able to say that it was this am book which first stimulated 1 interest in architecture when I was at sell and, for better or for worse, it Made and nostalgic about that self-contained cell authoritative Victorian world such as stir survived in the railway stations and char ches of London. 1 now find First and Last Loves als°i luminating about the 1930s, a decade whc.n moulded Betjeman's tastes and Of which he was both nostalgic and Inoaer; minded. Surprisingly progressive timents inform his curious polemic of 193' Ghastly Good Taste. Betjeman later rers jected the conventional optimism of hilpir youth, but he had actually been a Inet11"-t of that coterie of Modern Movetnen minded believers, the MARS (Modern Ar r; have earnest Research) Group. His re

not

earnest colleagues in this may „„r, understood that, for Betjeman, tional' architecture was a way of getting cri his parents' generation and the stuffy wordrepresented by Sir Herbert Baker and ''' Reginald Blomfield. Betjeman was also a founder member °f the Georgian Group and, in the same Yeabre' 1937, became an Honorary Member nf,tr, Art-Workers' Guild. He was introduced the latter by old Voysey, the Arts a n, Crafts designer, who was one of several 01' architects the young journalist and en. thusiast took up. Twenty-one years later; Betjeman helped to found the Vict°riare Society, and it is with Victorian architectu ,s that he is identified in the public mind.Tt automatic identification irritated him 'John Betjeman would like that!' when t11,., object in question was merely elaborate an vulgar — but he managed to control his ex: asperation. He was, of course, constantlY being asked to lend his support to preserva; tion campaigns. Lazy cynics and vandal often accused him of defending anything regardless of real quality. This was sin1P,iYd not true: he knew what was good and %oil' fight hard for it. Whimsical and diffident he may ha,, seemed, but he would campaign selfless'-: for a good cause. The trouble was that the!' were so many. Often he exercised his if; fluence quietly and behind the scenes. well as his authorship of the originia; 'Nooks and Corners' in Private Eye, h practical work in preserving building deserves to be recorded. In the case of _e Agnes, Kennington — one of two fin, churches of unfashionable date demolishenw since the war' to which his Collins Guidef English Parish Churches was dedicated he fought hard but in vain. Later he was in- strumental in thwarting the Rector and Patron of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, who ere planning to exploit 'ecclesiastical ex- emption' in the law and to destroy that Magnificent Arts and Crafts church. Holy Trinity still stands. One of his last public acts was to write to the Times to protest at the threatened closure of St Barnabas's, Plbeo. He found it unthinkable that the c."urch authorities knew so little and cared less about so famous an Anglo-Catholic building. ror Betjeman, churches were more than bust works of architecture; this separated

. from most art-historians. It was of Bet- leman's devotion to Comper's work that

,Pevsner was thinking when he condemned those

Who confound aesthetic with religious emotions'. Betjeman knew better; or him churches were places of worship. He Was a profoundly religious man, which makes the doubts and fear of death voiced

ob!s Poetry all the more moving and com- orting. Despite an interest in all forms of

English Christianity, he was a committed follow and he would not could not, follow his wife Penelope to Rome.

ntI.arri an unashamed admirer not only of tioeds rnan's poetry but of the gramophone bt'ee.r on which he reads his poetry to a rilliant musical accompaniment by Jim Parker. Here was a remarkable thing about the Man: conservative and deliberately dot- t,y,,sas he might seem, he responded to -unology with flair and enthusiasm. Bet- Je11-1an was a wonderful performer. Possibly 14 to the skill and intelligence of direc- Lbrs, he rose magnificently to the occasion on television and in films like Metroland he nlanaged to convey his enthusiasms to the Public in a wholly natural and engaging rr. tanner.

television In promoting architecture on Betjeman had no equal.

Alai-Her in his life he had affected an elderly manner, but old age had its revenge and caught up with him in a very cruel way, tsko realising his worst nightmares. Never- ieless, he bore the physical afflictions of "is last few years with courage and rfiernarkable resilience. And only these af- Ictions prevented him from supporting the cat,.:11Paign to stop Mr Palumbo creating his ."vver and Mansion House Square. Bet- JeMan was very generous but by no means cbharitable to all: property developers. and usmess executives, those who knowingly vulgarised and destroyed, he really hated and despised. di 46)1 Waugh once wondered in his into diary about Betjeman 'why did he not go his father's workshop? It would be far more honourable and useful to make ex- PeOsive ashtrays than to appear on tele- vision and just as lucrative.' We may be gladhe didn't, but his career was extraor- lbarY. A most original man, he began as as foal and tortured misfit who played the (321 Partly as self-defence; he ended as the _euarriPion of all that is best about England god, as such, was surely genuinely loved more than any other public figure. That, dPerhaps, is the greatest tribute to him. It is 'esPerately sad that he is no longer with us.