Summoned by Bells. This item is unavailable.Summoned by Bells

Betjeman is arguably Britain's best-loved and most widely read poet. Summoned By Bells, his verse autobiography, is brim-full of classic Betjeman themes.

It tells the story of a boy's growth to early manhood - seaside holidays, meddling aunts, school bullies, an unexpected moment of religious awakening, then Oxford, and sparkling pen-portraits of the literary greats he met there. His unabashedly musical verse is poignant, comic, reverent, defiant, devoted and, always, full of feeling.

John Betjeman was born on August 28th, 1906, in London. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1931, his first book of poems, 'Mount Zion', was published. He was knighted in 1969 and was made Poet Laureate in 1972. He died in 1984 at his home and was buried in the nearby church of St.Enodoc.