Status Updates From Summoned by Bells

Twas not, I think, a conscious search for God
That brought me to these dim forgotten fanes.
Largely it was a longing for the past,
With a slight sense of something unfulfilled;
And yet another feeling drew me there,
A sense of guilt increasing with the years—
“When I am dead you will be sorry, John”—
Here I could pray my mother would not die.
Thus were my London Sundays incomplete
If unaccompanied by Evening Prayer.

Great was my joy with London at my feet—
All London mine, five shillings in my hand
And not expected back till after tea!

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells
And sights, before the dark of reason grows.
Ears! Hear again the wild sou'westers whine!
Thee days on end would the September gale
Slam at our bungalows; three days on end
Rattling cheap doors and making tempers short

Escaping Father...

College at Marlborough.

The family moves to London: on the Underground, used books and Sunday evensong.

College at Oxford.

A childhood in Cornwall...

First love in primary school, a bullied childhood, an early attempt at poetry...

Now, Betjemann has to confront his father, for he is determined to be a poet and not continue the family's antiques business. Nevertheless and of course, he is left with a sense of guilt, as he remembers the enterprise his father built.