Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject

Subject: RIP: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
From: cptsnapper
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:25 PM

One of John Betjeman's muses Miss Joan Hunter Dunn - real name Joan Jackson - died recently at the age of 92. She was the subject of one of his most famous poems.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:35 PM

Very sad, but a good innings. I read that poem last weekend.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:40 PM

A Subaltern's Love Song

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

        -- John Betjeman

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn
From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 01:43 PM

Rest in Peace...

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 07:55 PM

I always thought she sounded heavy going.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Apr 08 - 08:20 PM

She makes a cameo appearance in "Tried by the Centre Court" by Flanders & Swann. I wonder if Miss Gail Hammerfest is real too.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 05:04 AM

Thanks for this interesting - if sad - news, Cap'n. She certainly made it to a good age. There are a number of obituaries online if you Google 'Joan Jackson Hunter Dunn' and the Guardian Books one is particularly good:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2274625,00.html

R.I.P.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 05:44 AM

I wonder what became of Peggy Purey-Cust?

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject
From: theleveller
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 08:10 AM

Always found Betjemen a bit too "oh, jolly hockey sticks, no more buttered scones for me mama, I'm orf to play the grarnd piarno".
'Fraid I don't do the English 'upper class' thing.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject
From: GUEST,Summoned By Balls
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 10:33 AM

Leveller:Betjeman was from a well-to-do middle class background,foreign to boot.He would probably been regarded as 'trade'with several Establishment counts against him,to which he added a few of his own devising.
Does the young man struggling with his bow-tie and noticing the 'unmade',i.e. private,roads sound at ease with the'upper classes'?
Cheers,SBB

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 11:04 AM

Thanks for posting the poem, Sins.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject
From: glueman
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 12:52 PM

Betjeman is much darker than he appears. His poetry sends himself and class aspiration up. A modernist turned revivalist and very much an outsider.

Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 08:40 PM

Dr. Ramsden cannot read _The Times_ obituary to-day
He's dead.                                 -- "I. M. Walter Ramsden"

He would have liked to say good-bye,
Shake hands with many friends,
In Highgate now his finger-bones
Stick through his finger-ends.

You, God, who treat him thus and thus,
Say "Save his soul and pray."
You ask me to believe You and
I only see decay.                   -- "On a Portrait of a Deaf Man"

The roll of the railway made musing creative:
I thought of the colleen I soon was to see
With her wiry black hair and grey eyes of the native,
Sweet Moira McCavendish, acushla machree.
                                  -- "A Lament for Moira McCavendish"