Sir John Betjeman was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture, helping to save St Pancras railway station from demolition. He began his career as a journalist and ended it as one of the most popular British Poets Laureate and a much-loved figure on British television.
Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra, was an English classical scholar, literary critic and academic, known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1951 to 1954.
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse".
Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson was a British architect. He was also active as an interior designer, as an artist, and as a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for the 1951 Festival of Britain. From 1976 to 1984, he was president of the Royal Academy.
Charles Stanley Causley CBE FRSL was a British poet, school teacher and writer. His work is often noted for its simplicity and directness as well as its associations with folklore, legends and magic, especially when linked to his native Cornwall.
Robert Byron was an English travel writer, best known for his travelogue The Road to Oxiana. He was also an art critic and historian.
John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs was an English poet and translator. He is known for verse influenced by classical myths, and for a long Arthurian poem, "Artorius" (1972).
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine New Verse, and went on to produce 13 collections of his own poetry, as well as compiling numerous anthologies, among many published works on subjects including art, travel and the countryside. Grigson exhibited in the London International Surrealist Exhibition at New Burlington Galleries in 1936, and in 1946 co-founded the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Grigson's autobiography The Crest on the Silver was published in 1950. At various times he was involved in teaching, journalism and broadcasting. Fiercely combative, he made many literary enemies.
A prebendary is a member of the Roman Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of the choir stalls, known as prebendal stalls.
A verse novel is a type of narrative poetry in which a novel-length narrative is told through the medium of poetry rather than prose. Either simple or complex stanzaic verse-forms may be used, but there will usually be a large cast, multiple voices, dialogue, narration, description, and action in a novelistic manner.
St Ervan is a rural civil parish and hamlet in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The hamlet is situated three miles (5 km) southwest of Padstow. St Ervan is named after St Erbyn, the original patron of the church, who is said to have been the father of St Selevan. Notable features in St Ervan are the Anglican church, the village hall and the Nonconformist cemetery. The parish population at the 2011 census was 521. In addition to the hamlet of St Ervan, also called Churchtown, the parish incorporates the hamlets of Penrose and Rumford.
George Alfred Magee ('Colonel') Kolkhorst (1897–1958) was an Oxford don, first a lecturer and then Reader in Spanish.
Egloskerry is a village and civil parish in east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately five miles (8.0 km) northwest of Launceston.
Wadebridge railway station was a railway station that served the town of Wadebridge in Cornwall, England. It was on the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway.
St Endellion is a civil parish and hamlet in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The hamlet and parish church are situated four miles (6.5 km) north of Wadebridge.
Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984) was a twentieth-century English poet, writer and broadcaster. Born to a middle-class family in Edwardian Hampstead, he attended Oxford University, although left without graduating. He turned down a position in the family furniture business, and instead took a series of jobs before becoming the assistant editor of The Architectural Review in 1931, which reflected a deeply held affection for buildings and their history. That same year he published his first book, Mount Zion, a collection of poems.
Summoned by Bells is a BBC TV film of John Betjeman's verse autobiography of the same name – " a unique and touching account of an Edwardian middle-class childhood."
A Passion for Churches is a 1974 BBC television documentary written and presented by the then Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman and produced and directed by Edward Mirzoeff. Commissioned as a follow-up to the critically acclaimed 1973 documentary Metro-land, the film offers Betjeman's personal poetic record of the various rituals taking place throughout the Anglican Diocese of Norwich and its churches in the run-up to Easter Sunday using the framing device of the Holy sacraments.
The statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras railway station, London is a depiction in bronze by the sculptor Martin Jennings. The statue was designed and cast in 2007 and was unveiled on 12 November 2007 by Betjeman's daughter, Candida Lycett Green and the then Poet Laureate Andrew Motion to commemorate Betjeman and mark the opening of St Pancras International as the London terminus of the Eurostar high-speed rail link between Great Britain and mainland Europe. The location memorialises the connection between St Pancras station and Betjeman, an early and lifelong advocate of Victorian architecture.
