‘The ancients knew nothing of sexual reproduction in plants, even when they gazed into flower heads and saw blatantly obvious sexual organs,’ PAGE 26


Holiness in surprising places


Betjeman and the Anglican


Imagination Kevin J. Gardner SPCK, 245PP, £14.99 ■Tablet Bookshop price £13.50


n asserting the formative contribution his subject made to “modern culture … to our thinking about English Christianity, and about Englishness itself”, Kevin Gardner would seem to be on a losing wicket with this book. Time, however, might well prove to be on his side. For a start, he has been able to draw on a substantial body of Betjeman’s prose, only recently available. This has allowed him to offer a more cogent and comprehensive study of how the two genres, poetry and prose, “mutually reinforce and influence each other” than has hitherto been possible. Being read and loved by people who wouldn’t otherwise read poetry was, in Betjeman’s day, to be seen as a lightweight. There has now arisen a generation of poets and readers who have subverted such categorisation: one can imagine “heavyweight” poets like Auden and T.S. Eliot, both admirers of Betjeman’s poetry, cheering them on.


I A similar criticism might have been


levelled at some of the other activities which made Betjeman a household name: his prodigious output of documentary, film and broadcast talks on architecture and his tireless campaigns to preserve ancient (and not so ancient) landmarks from the depredations of developers. Once seen as sentimental and old-fashioned, these concerns have found a prominent place on today’s ecological agenda and form a crucial element of “modern culture”. Betjeman’s Christian faith was, as is well known, the primary source of his poetic inspiration. Less well known are his titanic struggles to embrace the tenets of the faith he did so much to promote and defend. These struggles might well prove more persuasive than the trenchant certainties of that most authoritative of mid-twentieth-century apologists C.S. Lewis. In many of his best-loved poems, Betjeman’s gentle – and not so gentle –


01420 592974


‘In many of his best-loved poems, Betjeman’s gentle – and not so gentle –mockery of the pomposity and hypocrisy of his fellow Christians gives him an edge’


the best efforts of Evelyn Waugh) because of his conviction that, among all the contradictions and compromises inherent in Establishment, this hybrid tradition – formed as much from political convenience as theological fervour – was a place in which the fullness of God had, in the fullness of his generosity, consented to dwell. Had he been born in Italy or Ireland,


Betjeman would, as he said himself, have been a Roman Catholic. His time in Ireland, which he saw as “a wholly Christian country”, determined him to “go back and make England one, as far


mockery of the pomposity and hypocrisy of his fellow Christians gives him a further edge, for this reader. Far from being the comfort blanket it is


often assumed to be, Betjeman’s adherence to “the dear old C of E” cost him dear. It was a major factor in the breakdown of his marriage to Penelope Chetwode. When she was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1947, the poet’s anguish was poured into “Easter MCMXLVII”, a sonnet not published until 10 years after his death in 1984.


Betjeman’s adherence to ‘the dear old C of E’ cost him dear. It was a major factor in the breakdown of his marriage to Penelope Chetwode


In the perspective of Eternity The pain is nothing, now you go away Above the steaming thatch how silver-grey Our chiming church tower, calling “Come to me


My Sunday-sleeping


villagers!” And she, Still half my life, kneels now with those who say


“Take courage, daughter. Never cease to pray God’s grace will break him of his heresy”.


This must ring bells, too, for those of us for whom the question of whether or not the Church of England can any longer lay claim to being fully Catholic has assumed a new urgency. Betjeman remained unbroken (despite


as I can”. We cannot know how successful or


otherwise he was in this endeavour: Gardner wisely does not attempt to speculate. Any more than we can know what Betjeman would have made of today’s multi-faith Britain, women priests, or the breakdown of trust between clergy and people brought about by recent scandals. I am thankful to Gardner for giving his readers something we can hold on to: a rounded, skilfully rendered portrait of a man who, throughout his life and amid all his troubles and uncertainties, searched for beauty and holiness and found them in surprising places. Susan Dowell


The Talking Tablet


If you have difficulty in reading, or can no longer read, contact the


Talking Newspaper Association of the UK


for information about the regular edition on tape, or the etext version available by email, on our website.


Telephone: 01435 866102 Fax: 01435 865422 Email: info@tnauk.org.uk www.tnauk.org.uk


1 January 2011 | THE TABLET | 25


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40