Betjeman, John

(1906 -1984)

Information

It is probable that the future Poet Laureate took a certain degree of poetic licence when writing his poem ‘Westgate on Sea’. At the time he visited the place, probably while staying at nearby Birchington, the church of St Saviour ( the only Anglican church in Westgate ), a prime example of the Victorian architecture which Betjeman so unfashionably advocated, only had one bell, and a rather high-pitched one at that. Furthermore, Westgate was still a Parish Council in the early 1930s when the poem was written. It has been suggested that ‘the bells of Westgate’ may have been augmented in the poet’s imagination by the bells of the many schools in existence there in those days, whose pupils appear in the poem. Notwithstanding, the poem charmingly evokes the orderly, genteel resort of the 1930s , with its balconied housefronts.

Quotations

Hark, I hear the bells of Westgate,
I will tell you what they sigh,
Where those minarets and steeples
Prick the open Thanet sky.

Happy bells of eighteen-ninety,
Bursting from your freestone tower!,
Recalling laurel, shrubs and privet,
Red geraniums in flower.

Feet that scamper on the asphalt
Through the Borough Council grass,
Till they hide inside the shelter
Bright with ironwork and glass.

Striving chains of ordered children
Purple by the sea-breeze made,
Striving on to prunes and suet
Past the shops on the Parade.

Some with wire around their glasses
Some with wire around their teeth,
Writhing frames for running noses
And the drooping lip beneath.

Church of England bells of Westgate!
On this balcony I stand,
White the woodwork wriggles round me,
Clock towers rise on either hand.