TLS to Paul Emery

“I AM AN UGLY, BALD AND FAT OLD MAN…”

Single-sided typed sheet (20 x 19.5cm), with ‘Sir John Betjeman’ printed in red to the upper right hand corner, and stamped with his address of 26 Radnor Walk, London, SW3 4BP in purple ink to the upper right; dated 24th November 1975, with a further ten lines of typed text, signed by Betjeman in black ink; all on Eden Grove Bond watermarked paper; a couple of tiny creases, the lower portion of the sheet removed (possibly contemporaneously); else fine. 

A humorous letter depicting Betjeman’s dry humour at its best, responding to a fan’s request for a photograph. “I was very pleased to have your letter”, he writes, “It quite cheered me up on a Monday morning when I am sometimes gloomy. I am an ugly, bald and fat old man so I haven’t got a photograph I can send you.” “I am so glad you like poetry” he continues, “it is the shortest way of saying things and the most memorable. It looks nice on the page too. I hope you will go on liking it and I am sure you will write it. I like Bristol very much and particularly the peel (corrected) of twelve peels in the Tower of St Mary Radcliffe.” Betjeman celebrated the bells of another St Mary’s church in Bristol (those of the church in Bitton) in his poem Bristol: 

Ringers in an oil-lit belfry – Bitton? Kelston? who shall say? –

Smoothly practicing a plain course, caverned out the dying day

As their melancholy music flooded up and ebbed away…

Betjeman lived at 29 Radnor Walk in Chelsea, London, from 1973 until his death in 1984. Much of his late-career writing, broadcasting, and publishing was completed from this address, and a blue plaque now marks the spot where he lived and worked during these years.  

SKU: 1800155