John Betjeman

Sir John Betjeman (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was a British poet and writer on architecture. He was born in Highgate, London to a furniture-maker of Dutch ancestry and was educated at Marlborough College before going to Magdalen College, Oxford. He left Oxford without a degree when he neglected his work and failed his divinity exams.

Television programmes

His television programmes included:

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• John Betjeman In The West Country (made for the defunct ITV company TWW in 1962, this series was long thought lost, but was rediscovered in the 1990s and shown on Channel 4 under the titles The Lost Betjemans and Betjeman Revisited)
• John Betjeman Goes By Train (a co-production between BBC East Anglia and British Transport Films, made in 1962)
• Something About Diss (made for BBC East Anglia in 1964)
• Two episodes of the Bird's Eye View series — An Englishman's Home and Beside The Seaside (both made for the BBC in 1969)
• Betjeman In Australia (a co-production between the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Commission, made in 1971)
• Thank God It's Sunday (made for the BBC in 1972)
• Metroland (possibly his most famous television work, made for the BBC in 1973)
• A Passion For Churches (made for the BBC in 1974)
• Summoned By Bells (a television version of his verse autobiography, made for the BBC in 1976)
• Vicar Of This Parish (a documentary about Francis Kilvert and his love of Herefordshire and the Welsh Marches, made for the BBC in 1976)
• Queen's Realm (a compilation programme made for the Silver Jubilee in 1977, although most of it was compiled from 1968/69 Bird's Eye View footage)
• His final series was the retrospective Time With Betjeman (1983), which included extracts from much of his television work, conversations between Betjeman, his producer Jonathan Stedall, and many friends and colleagues, and included a memorable final interview filmed outside the poet's home in Cornwall.