
In our next three programmes we hear three of Lance’s favourite poems. We begin today with a deeply personal poem by John Betjeman: Before the Anaesthetic or A Real Fright
Download: Programme 3
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Youtube: Programme 3
You can find most of Betjeman’s poems in John Betjeman, Collected Poems, published by John Murray. There is a fuller list of books at betjemansociety.com/booklist
You can hear 72 of his most famous poems on: ‘John Betjeman: A First Class Collection’, BBC Audio and the best of the rest on ‘The John Betjeman You Never Knew‘ by Lance Pierson
Find out more about The Betjeman Society here
AN Wilson’s list of 31 Betjeman poems that he considered to be among the best written poems (in English) in the 20th century
Aldershot Crematorium
The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel
Business Girls
By the Ninth Green, St Enodoc
Christmas
The Cockney Amorist
The Costa Blanca
Croydon
Death in Leamington
Death of King George V
Devonshire Street, W.1
Eunice
Felixstowe
Harrow-on-the-Hill
In a Bath Teashop
In Willesden Churchyard
Invasion Exercise on the Poultry Farm
Ireland with Emily
Late-Flowering Lust
Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican
The Licorice Fields at Pontefract
Middlesex
Myfanwy
Myfanwy at Oxford
Oxford: Sudden Illness at the Bus-stop
Parliament Hill Fields
Pershore Station
St Saviour’s, Aberdeen Park, Highbury, London N
A Subaltern’s Love Song
Sun and Fun
Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, Hants