The team
Ruth Harrison
Angela Hicken
Madelaine - the book thief
Penny- Rose Ratcliffe
Rachel the editor- Jane the Archivist
Cordelia Gray- Friday Next
- Jacky Percival
Other teams
John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier Find!
Although Hampshire can't lay claim to John Betjeman, it does has a strong link through Bevis Hillier, his biographer.
I bumped into Bevis the other day at St Cross Hospital (the almshouse of noble poverty) where he is one of the brothers. Bevis Hillier is an art historian and journalist. His major work, the authorised biography of Sir John Betjeman, which he began a few years before his subject's death, was published by John Murray in three parts, appearing in 1988, 2002 and 2004. The work had taken him 25 years to research and write. A one-volume abridgement was published in 2006 for Betjeman's centenary.
I asked Bevis if he knew of any poems Betjeman had written about St Cross or about other places in Hampshire. He referred me to what he regards as one of Betjeman's finest poems: Youth and Age on Beaulieu Water. This poem is mentioned in a comment on another Betjeman find, where it is described as a 'rare Hampshire poem, which is a typical piece of girl-worship'.
Following an operation, Betjeman went to recover at Beaulieu 'where they have sharpies - little boats. And while I was there a most beautiful girl came by in a sharpie and asked me the time'.
Betjeman didn't know the time but made it up, as he 'wanted to oblige her in every possible way'. Later he asked his hosts who she was and was told that she was called Clemency Buckland, the daughter of a general.
An extract from Youth and Age on Beaulieu Water
Early sun on Beaulieu water
Lights the undersides of oaks,
Clumps of leaves it floods and blanches,
All transparent glow the branches
Which the double sunlight soaks;
To her craft on Beaulieu water
Clemency the General's daughter
Pulls across with even strokes.
Source:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1538
Copyright
from Collected Poems (John Murray, 1978), © The Betjeman Literary Estate,
29 September 2009 from Cordelia Gray
Finds
- A Daughter of Winchester
- And here is one we missed
- And, finally, one for Hallowe'en
- How did we miss this one?
- John Wyndham's Hampshire connection
- Reading the countryside
- New Milton's new Milton
- Heywood Sumner in South Gorley
- PG Wodehouse in Emsworth
- Walking In My Sleep
- Nicola Slade's Victorian Mysteries
- England's Lost Eden
- June Tate
- Bullington
- Speed The Plough: A Country Song
- A Hampshire scarecrow: Worzel Gummidge
- Queens Arms
- Haslar Hospital Memories
- Magical writing for children
- Inspired by the Tichborne Claimant
- Gypsy Girl Trilogy
- Rev. Gilbert White (1720-1793) and The Natural History of Selborne
- Coffee with Date and Walnut Loaf
- The Play Room
- Kipling's dislikes
- Deadman's Plack
- Netley Abbey Ruins
- Portsea Sagas
- Lilian Harry's Family Connections
- Crossing the Bar
- John Betjeman and Bevis Hillier
- Growing up in Portsmouth
- More Edward Thomas
- Two blokes and a shed
- In the shadow of the Cathedral
- Hampshire Days
- Mr Hardy Writes a Poem
- "Steep" is apt
- Thackeray in Fareham
- Forgotten Favourite?
- Daniel Clay's 'Broken'
- Pell and Tess
- Edward Thomas and Froxfield
- Betjeman explores hidden corners of Hampshire
- Rebecca Smith
- Right of Access
- Hampshire songs, poems, and ditties
- In this house
- Words & Walks
- England, Their England
- An Ode to a Road
- The story of a house
- Crime Connections to the City
- John Keat's Ode to Autumn
- William Lisle Bowles, poet
- Future Princes of Winchester
- Spike Island by Philip Hoare
- The marriage of souls
- Rural Rides: William Cobbett
- Elinor Brent-Dyer remembered
- Dornford Yates' Hampshire connection
- The Marlows, their maker and stealing a corner of Dorset
- Saint Cross: England's Oldest Almshouse
- Winchester the whole day through
- HOW TO BE A BETTER PERSON
- Otterbourne's Enid Blyton? Charlotte M. Yonge (1823-1901)
- Odo's Hanging is missing
- The Warden
- Charles Kingsley's Letters
- Owslebury Bottom
- See it My Way
- Introduction to Melesina Trench
- Some Hampshire road signs read Jane Austen Country
- Flora Thompson: published poet
Recent posts
- Postscrpt to a previous find
- The uses of a detective
- Reading Detectives film
- Virginia Smith remembered
- Mary Sumner
- A272: An Ode to a Road (by Andy)
- The hunt continues
- Winchester MP Mark Oaten to publish book
- Chalet School
- Bags of Books and Enthusiasm
- Chalet School author
- Poetry in the pub
- Wealth of words in Winchester
- Hampshire Gets Going
Help the team
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