The team
Angela Hicken
Madelaine - the book thief
Penny- Rose Ratcliffe
Rachel the editor- Jane the Archivist
Cordelia Gray- Friday Next
- Jacky Percival
Other teams
Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire Find!
The name of John Betjeman is hardly expected in association with the county of Hampshire - that honour lies more with Oxfordshire (or of course Slough!) but in his collection of topographical and architectural writings First and Last Loves there are two gems of essays; one about Hayling Island and another about the New Forest town of Lyndhurst. There is also another about Bournemouth at the time it was still a part of Hampshire.
Known of course mostly as a poet, Betjeman's prose, of which there is a considerable amount, is not to be missed. Recently collections of his radio talks as well as private letters and other writings have been republished in lovely tactile-curl-up-in-an-armchair-on-a-wet-Sunday-afternoon editions such as Trains and Buttered Toast. My copy of First and Last Loves was bought off a charity bookshelf in a church in Shropshire. I think I paid 20p for it - so not very different from the original cost of 10s (£0.50)net. Well loved and thumbed before it came to me, it is not a thing of beauty but rather a comfort book to squeeze into a large coat pocket for a train journey or to slip out while waiting in a queue. Betjeman would approve of such a use I suspect.
But back to Hampshire.... Betjeman's description of Hayling Island is so idiosyncratic and slightly mad, but so perfect you wonder why no-one has described it in such a way before:
"Hayling is just a piece of Hampshire that has slithered - oaks, elms, winding lanes and all - out of England into the sea... The twelve square miles of the place are as flat as a pancake.... even the open bit of coast at the southern end is rarely troubled by great waves, for the Isle of Wight and Selsy Bill protect Hayling from any big seas that come charging in from the English Channel. The island is like a T lying upside down in salt water, the cross beam of the T facing open water."
The rest of the book is equally engaging and as it says in the blurb "When Mr Betjeman writes of the country he writes as a poet, and when about buildings he never forgets the human beings by and for whom they were designed".
I think I have come to the conclusion that John Betjeman is one of my heros. The very first book I bought when I cam to live in England was The Best of Betjeman and last year I convinced my family that we should visit St Pancras station JUST so that we could go and look at the statue of Betjeman which stands gazing up at the roof - a reminder to us all to look up and see the wonderful architecture that surrounds us in everyday life. And just as he reminds us to look up I think he also reminds us to look closely - thanks to his essay in First and Last Loves next time we visit Lyndhurst we won't just be looking for a teashop we will be searching out the Burne Jones window in the church as well as the grave of Alice Liddell the inspiration behind Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
18 September 2009 from Madelaine - the book thief
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Finds
- And here is one we missed
- And, finally, one for Hallowe'en
- How did we miss this one?
- John Wyndham's Hampshire connection
- Reading the countryside
- New Milton's new Milton
- Heywood Sumner in South Gorley
- PG Wodehouse in Emsworth
- Walking In My Sleep
- Nicola Slade's Victorian Mysteries
- England's Lost Eden
- June Tate
- Bullington
- Speed The Plough: A Country Song
- A Hampshire scarecrow: Worzel Gummidge
- Queens Arms
- Haslar Hospital Memories
- Magical writing for children
- Inspired by the Tichborne Claimant
- Gypsy Girl Trilogy
- Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) and The Natural History of Selborne
- Coffee with Date and Walnut Loaf
- The Play Room
- Kipling's dislikes
- Deadman's Plack
- Netley Abbey Ruins
- Portsea Sagas
- Lilian Harry's Family Connections
- Crossing the Bar
- John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier
- Growing up in Portsmouth
- More Edward Thomas
- Two blokes and a shed
- In the shadow of the Cathedral
- Hampshire Days
- Mr Hardy Writes a Poem
- "Steep" is apt
- Thackeray in Fareham
- Forgotten Favourite?
- Daniel Clay's 'Broken'
- Pell and Tess
- Edward Thomas and Froxfield
- Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire
- Rebecca Smith
- Right of Access
- Hampshire songs, poems, and ditties
- In this house
- Words & Walks
- England, Their England
- An Ode to a Road
- The story of a house
- Crime Connections to the City
- John Keat's Ode to Autumn
- William Lisle Bowles, poet
- Future Princes of Winchester
- Spike Island by Philip Hoare
- The marriage of souls
- Rural Rides: William Cobbett
- Elinor Brent-Dyer remembered
- Dornford Yates' Hampshire connection
- The Marlows, their maker and stealing a corner of Dorset
- Saint Cross: England's Oldest Almshouse
- Winchester the whole day through
- HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON
- Otterbourne's Enid Blyton? Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901)
- Odo's Hanging is missing
- The Warden
- Charles Kingsley's Letters
- Owslebury Bottom
- See it My Way
- Introduction to Melesina Trench
- Some Hampshire road signs read Jane Austen Country
- Flora Thompson: published poet
Recent posts
- Virginia Smith remembered
- Mary Sumner
- A272: An Ode to a Road (by Andy)
- The hunt continues
- Winchester MP Mark Oaten to publish book
- Chalet School
- Bags of Books and Enthusiasm
- Chalet School author
- Poetry in the pub
- Wealth of words in Winchester
- Hampshire Gets Going
Help the team
Have you got something to contribute? You can contact us to report your clues and you can comment on our blog posts. It doesn't matter where in the world you are!
For Betjemaniacs, there is the rare Hampshire poem "Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, Hants", which is a typical piece of girl-worship, this time of "Clemency the General's daughter / Pulls across with even strokes" - heaven for the naughtically minded. One other Betjeman delight is the Shell Guides, a much-collected county series edited by John Betjeman and John Piper. The Guide to Hampshire, 1937, (which should be available in most local studies collections)is one of the most idiosyncratic, written by John Rayner, and full of literary, artistic, historical and architectural delights.