Betjeman

John Betjeman statue at St Pancras Station, London

The late John Betjeman, Great Britain's poet laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984, was familiar with Sheffield. He lived in the city intermittently,  fanned the flames of  an affair here with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the tenth Duke of Devonshire and in old age spent time as a stroke patient in The Royal Hallamshire Hospital. He was very fond of Sheffield, especially the well-heeled suburb of Broomhill - just a mile from this keyboard. He said it was "the prettiest suburb in England" which is a bold claim I think - probably fuelled by fond  memories of Lady Elizabeth.

In 1966, he wrote a poem about the city when he was no doubt lazing about  in a Broomhill villa. The Ebenezer he refers to is Ebenezer Elliott, The Corn Law Rhymer who I previously blogged about here. It is an interesting poem but not the kind of poetry that moves mountains. It is rather suburban and twee. For me the best features are (a) the reflection upon the lives of steel workers seeking weekend leisure and (b) the last two lines which describe Sheffield as "this hill-shadowed city/Of razors and knives." I like that for it reminds readers both of the city's geography and our proud steel heritage.

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An Edwardian Sunday, Broomhill, Sheffield 

High dormers are rising
So sharp and surprising,
And ponticum edges
The driveways of gravel;
Stone houses from ledges
Look down on ravines.
The vision can travel
From gable to gable,
Italianate mansion
And turretted stable,
A sylvan expansion
So varied and jolly
Where laurel and holly
Commingle their greens.

Serene on a Sunday
The sun glitters hotly
O'er mills that on Monday
With engines will hum.
By tramway excursion
To Dore and to Totley
In search of diversion
The millworkers come;
But in our arboreta
The sounds are discreeter
Of shoes upon stone -
The worshippers wending
To welcoming chapel,
Companioned or lone;
And over a pew there
See loveliness lean,
As Eve shows her apple
Through rich bombazine;
What love is born new there
In blushing eighteen!

Your prospects will please her,
The iron-king's daughter,
Up here on Broomhill;
Strange Hallamshire, County
Of dearth and of bounty,
Of brown tumbling water
And furnace and mill.
Your own Ebenezer
Looks down from his height
On back street and alley
And chemical valley
Laid out in the light;
On ugly and pretty
Where industry thrives
In this hill-shadowed city
Of razors and knives.

By John Betjeman (1966)