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John Betjeman: The Biography

A not so cuddly teddy bear

Bevis Hillier
John Murray, 590pp, £18.99,

Sam Leith

Wednesday, 16th August 2006

Only if you have spent the last few months living in a remote corner of Chad will you not have noticed that this year marks the centenary of Sir John Betjeman’s birth. We have already seen telly programmes, church restoration appeals, commemorative CDs of his readings, Cornish cliff walks and special outings on West Country railways in honour of a man whose genius consisted, as the late Sir Peter Parker put it, in ‘an infinite capacity for taking trains’.

Now come two new lives: A. N. Wilson’s snappy and stylish short biography, and a still hefty one-volume boiling-down of Bevis Hillier’s socking three-volume authorised life. Though it’s a matter for gossip more than scholarship, I should mention here that the authors seem cordially to hate one another, and have exchanged a fabulously childish series of insults in print. Why, I don’t know, but it makes reviewing them alongside each other a fraught project, particularly as I have reason to feel warmly towards both. It’s a huge relief to be able to report, without any feeling of compromise or dishonesty, that both books are terrific.

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