'I SHOULD LIKE to see John Betjeman added to his
own casualty list,' a truculent correspondent in- formed the Spectator recently, but I wonder whether—now that 'City and Suburban' is to be with us no more—he will not come to regret his words. One cannot work on a newspaper for long before realising that the test of a columnist is not whether his column is liked or disliked but whether it is read; and it has been one of the supreme merits of 'City and Suburban' that it has retained, in addition to its addicts, a constant stream of objectors who, by their very complaints, made it clear they were regular and avid readers. For myself (if a colleague may be permitted to write the valete) I have not always seen eye to eye with him about many of his enthusiasms; and as for his architectural idols, somebody once aptly (for me) called them Betjemanic depressions. But I entirely agree with another correspondent who, in answer to a recent Spectator questionnaire, called him 'always constructive in his destructive criticism of official vandalism.' Betjeman's has been the right kind of criticism; always stimu- lating, always provocative, always worth hearing even when you disagreed with what he was stand- ing for. But I suppose there could be no higher praise than to say that—unlike in the case of most columnists—the appointment of a successor has never even been considered : 'City and Suburban' is John Betjeman; that is all.
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