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Sunday 21 December 2014

December Meeting. An Appreciation by Alan McKinna





"On Friday 5 December the society welcomed Denis Moriarty to talk about
the life and works of John Betjeman. This was an inspired choice because 
Moriarty has studied one of our most loved recent Poets Laureate;
clearly he respects the man, not just as a poet but as one who put so much
effort into saving great Victorian architecture.

 An audience of over forty packed the Lower Court Hall to hear Denis take us 
 in less than ninety minutes from Betjeman's birth in Highgate in 1906 to his death in 1984. 
The only child of a cabinet maker, Betjeman had a lonely childhood that was lit up by several
holiday visits to Cornwall. His schooling in Highgate and Oxford led him to
board at Marlborough College before going up to Magdalen College, Oxford. There
he failed a Divinity exam - enjoying the less academic parts of undergraduate
life - and did not complete his degree. That did not prevent him taking a couple
of Prep school teaching posts.

Aged 24 he joined "The Architectural  Review" as assistant editor and a year
later published his first book of poems. Soon afterward he met and married
Penelope Chetwode, daughter of a Field Marshal who disliked his new son-in-law.
Mr Moriarty illustrated this biography with pictures of several of the couple's
homes before they settled in Uffington, Berkshire. There Betjeman wrote more poetry,
commentaries on architecture and began his definitive series of Shell Guides to
the Counties of England; with some of the earliest examples of English
landscape colour photography accompanying Betjeman's text. 

His prolific writing took him to Dublin in 1941 as Press Officer to the British
Representative - later it was said that when the IRA read his poetry he was
saved from assassination as a spy !!  Coming back to England in 1943 he worked
for the Ministry of Information and continued writing for several publications.
John, Penelope and their nine year old daughter, Candida, settled in Wantage in
1951.

Always they would frequently visit Cornwall, where a home in Trebetherick on the
North Coast near Padstow was a place for relaxation, more writing and escape
from the pressures of frequent appearances on the wireless and television. 
"Collected Poems" in 1958 and an autobiography in verse,"Summoned by Bells" in
1960 established his poetic authority, and he continued to make architectural
salvation a vital part of his prodigious output, especially for decaying English
Parish Churches.

He parted from Penelope and for 33 years was accompanied and supported by
Lady Elizabeth Cavendish. He also evidently had a four year relationship with 
Margie Geddes in the 1970s. He was knighted in 1969 and made Poet
Laureate in 1972 but did not welcome the need to write verse to order for
specific Royal or National occasions. The last few years of his life  were spent
more and more in Cornwall with his mobility limited by Parkinson's disease; he
died there aged 77 and is buried in the little church of St. Enodoc in the sand
dunes of Daymer Bay, near his home in Trebetherick.



 Angela Hill, who introduced us to Denis Moriarty, with JB at St Pancras

Denis Moriarty is an accomplished lecturer and tutor in subjects musical and
architectural; he was a director and producer in the Arts and Music sections of
BBC Television for several years - introducing viewers to much-loved programmes
such as a series on ENGLISH TOWNS with Alec Clifton Taylor,
FACE THE MUSIC with Joseph Cooper and Joyce Grenfell and ONE HUNDRED 
GREAT PAINTINGS. His enthusiasm for John Betjeman was infectious, spell-binding
 and eye-catching with his various slides - only surpassed for many of his listeners by his
delivery of several poems."