Trains and Buttered Toast: Selected Radio Talks

John Betjeman

ISBN 10: 0719561264 / ISBN 13: 9780719561269

Published by John Murray, 2006

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.

Seller Inventory # wbs9141670928

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Trains and Buttered Toast: Selected Radio Talks
• Publisher: John Murray
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0719561264
• ISBN 13: 9780719561269
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 550 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Eccentric, sentimental and homespun, John Betjeman's passions were mostly self-taught. He saw his country being devastated by war and progress and he waged a private war to save it. His only weapons were words—the poetry for which he is best known and, even more influential, the radio talks that first made him a phenomenon. From fervent pleas for provincial preservation to humoresques on eccentric vicars and his own personal demons, Betjeman's talks combined wit, nostalgia and criticism in a way that touched the soul of his listeners from the 1930s to the 1950s. Now, collected in book form for the first time, his broadcasts represent one of the most compelling archives of 20th-century broadcasting.

About the Author

John Betjeman was born in 1906 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. His gave his first radio talk in 1932; future appearances made him into a national celebrity. He was knighted in 1969 and became poet laureate in 1972. He died in 1984. Stephen Games writes about in architecture and language. He was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, made documentaries for BBC Radio 3 and was the first arts correspondent on The Independent. His work for the Guardian brought him a British Press Award. He has been a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and deputy editor of the RIBA Journal. In 2002, he edited the radio talks of Nikolaus Pevsner, whose biography he is writing.