Summoned by BellsJohn Betjeman has written his autobiography. It is, as one would have hoped, in verse--the clear, captivating, unabashedly musical verse which has made Betjeman one of the best loved English poets since Tennyson. It shines, as one would expect with the poet's love for the English countryside, his delight in the small good things of life, his sure eye for the comical in himself and in others. Above all, it is the touching story of a boy's growth to manhood. |
Contents
Chapter | 1 |
THE DAWN OF GUILT | 7 |
First love affair and tea at the spacious house of | 19 |
Copyright | |
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afternoon Angus Arrol-Johnston Auction Bridge bath bells Betjeman bicycle Biddy bike breakfast buttered toast Canterbury Quad chapel church cliffs climbing Colonel Cornish Cornwall dark Deep doors Dragon School dread Dugdale Eric Lane eyes father friends garden Gerald Haynes German spy Godstow grass green grey hand Hannah Wallis hawthorn caves heard hedge high cow-parsley waves Highgate Junior School hung John Kentish Town knew Kolkhorst lane laughed leather London look Magdalen Magdalen Tower Mandeville Maud Maurice Bowra Miss Tunstall Miss Usher morning mother motor-car Muswell Hill nice night North Oxford once Oxford Padstow Peggy Purey-Cust Perhaps plates prep Pusey House Road Ronnie Wright round Safe scent Secret Glory Sezincote shone slammed slate smell somewhere stairs Stepper Point stood Street Sturmey-Archer Sunday thrill tower town Trebetherick verse Waiting walked walls warm watched water-colours wind Wytham Woods