Product Description

Tennis Whites and Teacakes brings together the best of Betjeman’s poetry, private letters, journalism and musings to present a fully rounded picture of what he stood for. From his arguments for new steel buildings to his amusement about the etiquette of village teashops, it reveals Betjeman not just as a sentimentalist but as a passionate observer with a wonderful sense of humour and an acute eye.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12876 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From the Author
I am the editor of the work on this CD and my name should be added to the credits - thus: "by John Betjeman (Author), Stephen Games (Editor), Charles Collingwood (Reader)". Thank you.

About the Author
John Betjeman was born in 1906 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. His gave his first radio talk in 1932; future appearances made him into a national celebrity. He was knighted in 1969 and became poet laureate in 1972. He died in 1984.

Stephen Games writes about in architecture and language. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, made documentaries for BBC Radio 3 and has worked for the Independent, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, and was deputy editor of the RIBA Journal. In 2002, he edited the radio talks of Nikolaus Pevsner.

Customer Reviews

A guidebook to Englishness
What a delicious book! "Tennis Whites and Teacakes" gathers Betjeman's thoughts on a range of subjects from childhood and school to girls and boys, friends and aristocrats, war and peace, holidays and travel, and church and belief. And you get much more than you were expecting: there's his trademark sentimentality - but Betjeman thought that sentimentality was good, and that forces you to reconsider your preconceptions. Then again, it's much sharper and more sceptical about Englishness than you might have guessed. Betjeman, for all his snobbery and fogeyness, had a keen eye, and he saw - and saw through - a lot that the heritage industry now expects us to lap up uncritically. One other thing that's surprising is his enthusiasm for aspects of the modern world - stuff that we've always understood he disapproved of. In short, this huge tome is a treasury of surprises - a real eye-opener. And there's masses inside it that's very relevant today too - articles about bullying, about Oxford's gay culture in the 1920s, about his refusal to fly the flag during the last war, and about the difficulty of belief in God, for example. If you thought Betjeman was just a poet, then read this and you'll find he's just as entertaining and thought-provoking as a journalist, a diarist and a correspondent. This book is a must-buy for anyone who wants to understand the patron saint of Englishness and England's national spirit in the 20th century.