|
18 Apr 08 - 01:25 PM (#2319433) Subject: RIP: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn From: cptsnapper 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. |
|
18 Apr 08 - 01:35 PM (#2319444) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn From: GUEST,glueman Very sad, but a good innings. I read that poem last weekend. |
|
18 Apr 08 - 01:40 PM (#2319451) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn From: SINSULL 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 |
|
18 Apr 08 - 01:43 PM (#2319452) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn From: GUEST,Bob Ryszkiewicz Rest in Peace... |
|
18 Apr 08 - 07:55 PM (#2319701) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject From: Big Al Whittle I always thought she sounded heavy going. |
|
18 Apr 08 - 08:20 PM (#2319721) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub From: Joe_F She makes a cameo appearance in "Tried by the Centre Court" by Flanders & Swann. I wonder if Miss Gail Hammerfest is real too. |
|
19 Apr 08 - 05:04 AM (#2319879) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub From: Bonnie Shaljean 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. |
|
19 Apr 08 - 05:44 AM (#2319893) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub From: GUEST,PMB I wonder what became of Peggy Purey-Cust? |
|
19 Apr 08 - 08:10 AM (#2319948) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject From: theleveller 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. |
|
19 Apr 08 - 10:33 AM (#2320016) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject From: GUEST,Summoned By Balls 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 |
|
19 Apr 08 - 11:04 AM (#2320034) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject From: katlaughing Thanks for posting the poem, Sins. |
|
19 Apr 08 - 12:52 PM (#2320090) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem subject From: glueman Betjeman is much darker than he appears. His poetry sends himself and class aspiration up. A modernist turned revivalist and very much an outsider. |
|
19 Apr 08 - 08:40 PM (#2320415) Subject: RE: Obit: Miss Joan Hunter Dunn -Betjeman poem sub From: Joe_F 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" |