John betjeman biography

John Betjeman described himself as a "poet and a hack", a sentiment typical of the wry self-deprecating wit that has earned him an indelible place in the affections of the British public.

By his death in 1984, he was probably the 20th century's most popular Poet Laureate.

Born in 1906, Betjeman grew up in the suburbs of north London. At school his German name marked him out for the attention of bullies. He arrived at Oxford University with a teddy bear which gave his contemporary Evelyn Waugh the idea for Aloysius, Sebastian's teddy, in Brideshead Revisited.

Betjamin was more concerned with his social life and writing for university magazines than his academic studies and failed to complete his degree.

Betjeman wrote extensively about his early experiences in the blank-verse poem Summoned By Bells, which describes a largely idyllic childhood threatened by events in the larger world.

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