Sorry - didn't make myself clear. I wasn't talking sexuality - more sexism. Unless, of course, Miss JHD was as clumsy as Lumpy Latimer, in which case the metaphor might have been accurate.Gareth Hughes said:Penners said:That line always worried me slightly...Sir John Betjeman said:...the grace of a boy
Don't see why it should, as a young man (at least) Betjeman was decidedly "unmarried"
Last night's TV
Griff Rhys Jones' homage to Betjeman was charming as can be, and had the nuns of Felixstowe in gales of giggles besides
Nancy Banks-Smith
Tuesday August 22, 2006
The Guardian
Betjeman and Me - Griff Rhys Jones (BBC2) was like a walk with Tigger and Pooh. Griff bouncing on his toes and Betjeman toddling along in a large selection of implausible hats. Betjeman's hats always caused comment. At Rose Macaulay's memorial, we are told, "he rather spoiled his effect by wearing a battered brown round pork pie hat which combined with the tail coat to give an effect of the Crazy Gang". In the pub "his hat came in for a good deal of derision, for it was almost non-existent in depth and sat on the noble brow like the crest of a waxwing".
He was widely loved and read and recognised, being quite superb on TV. There was, of course, the odd raspberry from the shrubbery. As Craig Raine put it, "the tough guys on the north face of the future, hanging there by their ice axes, didn't have much time for this guy on his bicycle with the wicker basket writing immortal couplets like 'I think that I should like/To be the saddle of a bike.'" It does sound so infuriatingly simple.
Among his admirers were Joanna Lumley, all velvety breathlessness like being rubbed with plush, John Mortimer, another writer who specialises in looking like a parcel coming apart, and, most entertainingly, the nuns of Felixstowe. Felixstowe is one of those pebbly, perishing, early-closing-day places, which Betjeman loved. On the convent wall is the infinitely diffident request: "Please try to remember to keep the doors locked." God, you felt, would forgive you if you forgot.
Griff began: "Are there any particular poems that anybody likes? Particularly?" A serene silence fell. "I think you said ... " he continued, the note of desperation hardly showing at all. A small Irish nun gave a start. There was, she said, somebody in the community whose name was Joan Hunter, and she read the Subaltern's Love Song to rippling gales of giggles. Miss Joan Hunter, one must say, was a woman who outstripped even Betjeman's most strapping fantasy. The associate producer, by the way, was one Daisy Newton-Dunn.
Never tell fate what you want. As he grew old, Betjeman asked only to be left laughter. He got Parkinson's, which prevents you smiling.
I know Felixstowe well, having done much of my courting there - Mrs P is a Felixstowe girl. Fortunately for me, she decided to marry me and not Jesus.Nemesis said:Last night's TV
Felixstowe is one of those pebbly, perishing, early-closing-day places, which Betjeman loved.