The 'curse' of Betjeman
WHISPER it softly, but poet John Birtwhistle wonders when John Betjeman's beatification of Broomhill was really a bit of a curse.
And he's asking the question – where else? – but in Broomhill this week.
Just to remind you, the former Poet Laureate once described it as a "leafy district" and "still the prettiest suburb in England" in a newspaper article in 1961.
Five years later Betjeman, whose statue is at St Pancras Station, immortalised the suburb in his poem An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield, picking up phrases from the article.
He writes of "A sylvan expansion/ So varied and jolly/ Where laurel and holly/ Commingle their greens."
Says John: "It has been used to advertise student accommodation and retirement homes. It dominates discussion. It was bandied about in the appeal against building at Taptonville, the Secret Garden."
Politicians have jumped in on the act. Nick Clegg quoted Betjeman in his Commons maiden speech and Tory leader David Cameron said he wanted to shed the image of being "the party of the leafy suburbs."
John, aged 63, a retired university lecturer in English and author of six collections of poems, is giving talks at the Oxfam bookshop on Fulwood Road entitled: the Curse of Betjeman or Broomhill in World Literature.
He says: "I rather naughtily called it a curse because although it has inspired a lot of attempts to protect traditional features of Broomhill at the same time it has given people the excuse to ignore us.
"Any problems in such a 'leafy suburb' must surely be very minor and not worth police time, so to speak. The truth is closer to what English Heritage has just reported, that urban Conservation Areas are now a threatened species."
He suspects a certain reaction in the Town Hall every time someone opens a complaining letter from Broomhill which starts by mentioning Betjeman.
"The overuse of this phrase is enough to dismiss us as middle class whingers."
It is probably Broomhill's fate to be forever linked with Betjeman although John points out people often drop the word 'still' from 'the prettiest suburb.'
"His word implies that even in 1961 the city was under some threat and in the same sentence he mentions houses being taken over by offices and 'academies.'"
Betjeman knew Broomhill well. He wasn't just passing through.
He knew it while conducting his affair with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the 10th Duke, and was in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital for a month after a stroke in 1981.
There's a story that Betjeman, once described as the Teddy Bear to the nation, supported in 1974 an attempt to preserve the Victorian aspect of Broomhill, a year after Broomhill Action Neighbourhood Group was founded, and he's hoping the publicity might uncover a letter.
So does he think that Betjeman was right?
He does but adds: "It suggests some complacency and even a bit of privilege.
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Latest sport Betjeman has inspired a lot of good work in protecting the Broomhill Conservation Area; but claiming to be the prettiest suburb in England might justifiably annoy some people who live elsewhere in our city.”
n The talks are free at the shop on Wednesday and Friday, both at 12.45pm.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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