Customer Reviews

A guidebook to Englishness - By: Miss Sparrow, 17 Jun 2007
What a delicious book! "Tennis Whites & Teacakes" gathers Betjeman's thoughts on a range of subjects from childhood & school to girls & boys, friends & aristocrats, war & peace, holidays & travel, & church & belief. And you get much more than you were expecting: there's his trademark sentimentality - but Betjeman thought that sentimentality was good, & that forces you to reconsider your preconceptions. Then again, it's much sharper & more sceptical about Englishness than you might have guessed. Betjeman, for all his snobbery & fogeyness, had a keen eye, & he saw - & saw through - a lot that the heritage industry now expects us to lap up uncritically. One other thing that's surprising is his enthusiasm for aspects of the modern world - stuff that we've always understood he disapproved of. In short, this huge tome is a treasury of surprises - a real eye-opener. And there's masses inside it that's very relevant today too - articles about bullying, about Oxford's gay culturein the 1920s, about his refusal to fly the flag during the last war, & about the difficulty of beliefin God, for example. If you thought Betjeman was just a poet, then read this & you'll find he's just as entertaining & thought-provoking as a journalist, a diarist & a correspondent. This book is a must-buy for anyone who wants to understand the patron saint of Englishness & England's national spiritin the 20th century.