Trains and Buttered Toast by John Betjeman

Trains and Buttered Toast Reviews

• 
  Mike Sumner

  This wonderful book is a record of most of the best of John Betjeman’s radio talks for the BBC - most of them broadcast in the 40s and 50s, the golden age of wireless. Betjeman had a boundless capacity to delight and inspire and is undoubtedly one of our best-loved poets. His great passion was for architecture, particularly churches and he is reckoned to have visited more than 5,000 in his time. Eccentric, enthusiastic, whimsical and often belligerent he is at home here with his tales of trains, buttered toast, hymn-writing vicars and Regency terraces.
  
  For me this is a book full of nostalgia (a word that Betjeman disliked, said it reminded him of neuralgia! He preferred the word sentimentality). Nevertheless, in these pages I am reminded so much of my own carefree childhood, spent in Kent in the period following the end of the 2nd World War. Here are a few lines taken from ’Coming Home, Or England Revisited’, broadcast on Thursday 25th February 1943:
  
  ’For me, at any rate, England stands for the Church of England, eccentric incumbents, oil-lit churches, Women’s Institutes, modest village inns, arguments about cow parsley on the altar, the noise of mowing machines on Saturday afternoons, local newspapers, local auctions, the poetry of Tennyson, Crabbe, Hardy and Matthew Arnold, local talent, local concerts, a visit to the cinema, branch-line trains, light railways, leaning on gates and looking across fields….’
  
  These talks are a fitting memorial to what set Betjeman’s pulses racing and what he feared the loss of and are no longer of course a guide to what can be seen today. But as a picture, a snapshot of past times in the country I love, this is nostalgia (sorry, sentimentality) at its best.
  
  Thank you Sir John. I loved it.
• 
  Paul Gallear

  I love Betjeman's poetry, but if I had to read one more reference to ilex trees, stucco walls, Georgian architecture, gimcrack, gas lighting town planners, London spreading like an octopus, or how the Victorians ruined most churches, I was going to throw the book out of a window and have done with it.
  
  Sometimes the writing is beautiful, poetic, and nostalgic in a good way, but a lot of the time it is repetitive and comes across as stilted and as though Betjeman was hopelessly old fashioned. I like to think this has something to do with the selection and the editing, but I fear that if this is a selection of his best radio work then a lot was left out which wasn't work wasting ink on.
  
  Also, I didn't like the edition. The occasional asterisk was used to highlight a salient point, but large lists of names went unexplained, and numerous references and points which a modern reader might not have picked up on were lost in the text. I'd like to see the text annotated in a scholarly way instead of half-heartedly.
  
  By far and away the best chapter of the book was Eccentrics; the English have always had a penchant for producing eccentrics, and we do like to hear about the maddest. But this, again, lost a lot through lack of footnotes.
  
  I do hope listening to Betjeman delivering these essays and talks would have been a lot more enjoyable than reading them.
• 
  Cheryl

  One of the books I read recently spent a lot of time commenting on the work of Betjeman in describing England on his radio spots, so I was excited when someone passed along a copy of this book. I learned a lot about many of the smaller towns and villages in West England (a place where they define small towns and villages quite differently, instead of using the terms interchangeably), particularly the architecture and church architecture. It was a charming picture of time gone by (at least I assume a lot of these places are no longer what they were in the 1940s and 1950s, even though it is the way most Americans picture small town English life) that made me that much more interested in visiting this part of the world. I was fascinated by the lives of some of the writers and hymnists of the area and by the description of some of the great buildings of the area. And I enjoyed the poetry quoted, including that written by Betjeman himself.
• 
  Wayne

  Excellent read. I really enjoyed reading about places that have now probably changed to some degree, however, I would still like to visit and explore. Great read for those of us who love the U.K. and England in particular.
• 
  Lukasz Lukomski

  If you draw a line from London to Cardiff, anything south of it is the quintessence of England. Nay, Britain. Anything north of it is wilderness. An occasional mention of spots from the North don't really make up for it.
• 
  Kate

  "Broadcasting in the golden age of wireless, Betjeman was a national treasure for millions of devoted listeners. Here his eccentric, whimsical and homespun radio talks are collected in book form for the first time. From trains and buttered toast to hymn-writing vicars and Regency terraces, his enthusiasms are infectious.
  
  "Travel with him as he potters about at the seaside,l delves into country churches and marvels at provincial cities. And rediscover, as he did, how to appreciate our discarded heritage: 'I shan't tell you where are the lovely places are,' he says playfully, 'I want them to myself. But I'll tell you where to look.'"
  ~~back cover
  
  A charming book, which has the effect of making the reader want to instantly go and explore all the places he talks about. But since most of these little reviews were given in the 1940s and '50s, it makes you wonder how many of these villages and churches remain as undiscovered, unspoiled and unmodernized today. Actually, one shudders to think ...
• 
  Jennifer

  This is a book I have wanted to read for a long time and my grade assessment of "It was OK" is perhaps a reflection of the difference between my expectation and experience rather than overall quality. I enjoy all the subject matter of these talks - English eccentrics, seaside towns and so on, I like Betjeman's poetry... and I love the cover which matches very well what I thought I was getting.
  
  The first sign that something was off was the introduction by the editor Stephen Games which paints an unattractive wheedling, idle picture of Betjeman and the texts of the talks never quite shake it off. There are, as befits a poet, some wonderful lines, but the words which come to mind are coquette, contrarian and even fraud. Granted these are the text of radio talks spread across a couple of decades but there was far too much recycling and padding going on.
• 
  Tim Corke

  The front cover testimonial quotes "a volume that no Betjemaniac will be without". I would be so bold as to say "a volume that a non-Betjemaniac won't need". Unless you're a fan, I wouldn't worry too much about this book. I consider myself to be fairly patient with books but after the first 100 pages and several talks of various topics I was soon bored and questioning whether to continue.
  
  Yes, there's a romantic sentimentality of Betjeman's prose that will strike a chord and is definitely astute when it comes to predicting certain economic and civil changes but you get all of this very early on. It gets a bit moany and presents a singular and plain view. It reminds me of reading some 'creative' text of my early school work.
  
  There's simply nothing that grabbed and kept my attention.
• 
  Steve Chilton

  The book is a selection of Betjeman's radio broadcasts, but unfortunately didn't really hold my interest. It covers his passions and very evident prejudices. When reading the pieces you can almost hear that familiar voice alternating between a serious approach and then poking fun at circumstances. It doesn't really do justice to the man though.
• 
  Pam

  A collection of his radio talks from 30's to 70s. Some parts more interesting than others, but enjoyable. You certainly get to know the man - he's not afraid of expressing his opinions! Terribly English!
• 
  Andy

  Wouldn't mind buying this to dip into at my leisure.
• 
  Lysergius

  Broadcasts from the golden age of the wireless describing a bygone era with sensitivity and a poet's eye.
• 
  Sarah

  Abandoned on page 51 of 342. Just not me