These days we're fortunate enough to have “Poems on the Underground”, where
the grim rush-hour London crush is occasionally enlightened by something
uplifting in one of the advertising slots above passengers' heads that are
usually reserved for interest-free transfers on credit cards. One poet who
has graced the curve of the underground railcar is John Betjeman, whose poem
City was used to celebrate his centenary year in 2006.
Back in 1953, Betjeman gave us “Poems in the Porch”, also based on the idea of
poems being pinned up in public, in this case on the noticeboard of the
fictional porch of the church of Stoke St Petroc. They were read over the
radio by Betjeman at the general rate of one a month for three years.
Although it was known that he was really the author, as a contextual device
to frame his poems in a religious broadcast, “Poems in the Porch” must have
conjured up an endearing image: Betjeman was imagined by listeners to step
into the small, intimate space that joined the everyday world to the
ecclesiastical, to read what had apparently been left there by a
parishioner.
Casting a humorous - if cynical - eye on the vagaries and vanities of clergy
and parishioners alike, albeit in his praise of God, Betjeman's poems would
have brought some light relief to an otherwise very serious programme. Being
written specifically for radio entertainment these are not complicated
poems, and although highly moral, they do amuse.
In Advent Bells (Advent being the season that includes the four Sundays
before Christmas) the bells demand that the listeners “Prepare!” for the
celebration of the birth of Christ. A character by the name of Mr Flight
enquires: “Prepare for whom?” since he thinks “Mahomet, Moses, Buddha/ Were
just as good as Christ...”.
Mr Flight's thoughts are swept aside by the introduction of Emmanuel Seed, a
joiner who, though a goodly soul, didn't “hold with any creed”. Emmanuel's
vicar, however, being “a man/ Of guile” asks him to make a crib for
Christmas. Emmanuel, so happy that he wasn't asked for money, agrees; he
resolves to make something really special, so that the vicar will know that
he is as good as any believer.
His vanity is appealed to again, and he is encouraged to visit his crib in
church. After two or three visits he finds that he enjoys the services for
what they are, and continues to attend. Christian faith, cites Betjeman, was
Emmanuel's reward for building “a stable for the Lord”, while Mr Flight, the
disbeliever, remained remote from the nurture of the church. Betjeman had
made his point.
St Petroc was the very last Poem in the Porch, read on February 1,
1957. Here is a spirit who professes to have witnessed the arrival of the
Celtic saint from Wales, “Just fifteen hundred years ago”, bringing
Christianity to the heathens.
In characteristically lyrical style the story describes the history of the
Church of England through the evolution of the imaginary church of Stoke St
Petroc: Normans built on Saxon foundations, the Middle ages brought
development; the Reformation brought destruction, a Victorian architect
redesigned the church and priests and parsons came and went until, as the
spirit points out, “it's 1957” and “still we try to get to heaven”. Despite
structural upheavals and human impositions, nothing had changed
fundamentally in the beliefs of the church since the days “when St Petroc
came”. Our vanities, egos and weaknesses hadn't obliterated the idea that
ultimately we should all strive to be worthy of something better at our end.
Advent Bells
The Advent bells proclaim “Prepare!”
Across the starry winter air
A sweet encirclement of sound
To all the moonlit hamlets round,
“Prepare!” along the whistling hedge
“Prepare!” beyond the Parish edge,
Till in the lighted market town
An eight-bell peal begins to drown
The bells of ev'ry neighbouring steeple
“Prepare! Prepare, beloved people!”
“Prepare for whom?” says Mr Flight,
Always grammatically right.
“I think Mahomet, Moses, Buddha
Were just as good as Christ - and good-er.
Oh, yes,” he says, “Christ was a teacher,
A charming man and splendid preacher.
But do you also think him God?
Dear me,” he says, “how very odd.
I fear I can't be troubled with
So highly primitive a myth.”
But still the bells ring out the news
Quite unaffected by his views.
And every listening Advent brings
Its message down on angels' wings
That He who made the stars and sea,
The universe and you and me,
Took human flesh and lived on earth
And Christmas Eve recalls his birth.
And men who know the truth's profound
Have collars on the wrong way round,
And for most miserable pay
Give up their lives to teach His way.
What is His way? The bells ring out,
“Come you to church and worship Him
Upon your knees if faith is dim.”
And is He God? Yes. We believe Him
When we in bread and wine receive Him
In very childlike humble faith
Prepared for life, prepared for death
By sacrament and prayer and praise.
I'll tell a tale to you to prove
The way in which God works by love.
I'll call the man Emmanuel Seed -
He did not hold with any creed,
He never went to church on Sunday,
His Sunday was the same as Monday
Except that he could read of crime
And lie in bed till dinner time.
He was a decent friendly type
Who liked his pint and liked his pipe.
Emmanuel's vicar was a man
Of guile. He had a clever plan.
He said to him, “Emmanuel,
That you're a joiner I know well.
I wonder now if you would jib
At helping me construct a crib?
I want a model of a stable,
And make it quickly as you're able
To be in Church by Christmas day
For when the children come to pray.”
Emmanuel thought, “Well, that is funny:
He isn't asking me for money,
He asks me just to use my hands.
If that is all that he demands,
I'll have a try. I'll thatch it too.
I'll show him just what I can do,
And then he'll know the likes of we
Who don't believe are good as he.”
He made it. “My! you've done it well,
We're mighty pleased, Emmanuel,”
Said Harry Hawke, the people's warden.
“It's better than our Easter garden.
Why don't you come and see it lit
With all the figures put in it?'
Emmanuel said he wouldn't mind,
He'd come if so he felt inclined.
He came not once, but twice or thrice.
He thought church services were nice,
And soon he thought them more than that.
“Now what's the vicar getting at?
I know that I have been baptised,
I'm darned if I'll be catechised
Like any kid.” But, truth to tell,
The bishop confirmed Emmanuel.
Emmanuel's still a pleasant type
Who likes his pint and likes his pipe
But now our friend Emmanuel Seed
Is buttressed by the Christian creed
And still the friend of all in need.
This tale is only told to prove
A way in which God works by love.
Seed built a stable for the Lord -
The Christian faith was his reward.
St Petroc
Well yes, perhaps I am a ghost
With longer memory than most
And used our Western land to know
Just fifteen hundred years ago
And saw the corachs with their sails
Carrying Celtic Saints from Wales,
Among them Petroc, he who came
And gave this place its Christian name.
St Petroc, praise of God, his theme,
Waist deep in our brown Moorland stream.
St Petroc with his staff and bell
And draughty, stone-built beehive cell,
St Petroc at his holy well
Baptising heathen, years before
Augustine reached the Kentish shore.
If Petroc’s time you would recall,
Look in our ferny churchyard wall
And you will see, all black with moss,
The stone shaft of a Celtic cross.
Stoke is a Saxon name for place
The prefix of that conquering race
Whose treatment of the Celts was shabby.
Years later when a Norman abbey
Built on St Petroc’s sure foundation
Its little outpost mission station,
St Petroc’s name was kept to show
Which Stoke we were, so strangers know
Stoke Petroc from Stoke Gabriel,
Stoke Climsland and Stoke Damarel.
And in my role of ghost I see
The Norman church there used to be
Nine hundred years ago. ’Twas small,
Just nave and chancel, that was all.
The high-up slatted windows might
In summer weather dimly light
The font we still have got, the floor,
The painted walls and rounded door,
The chancel arch with carved respond,
The altar richly dark beyond.
Three centuries pass, and now I view
Our Stoke St Petroc builded new.
A family chapel on the east
Was added, with its chantry priest,
A new south aisle, a gilded screen.
With painted saints in red and green.
[The granite font and thick north wall
Above the Norman kings recall.]
The church was spacious, filled with light
From stained-glass windows, silver bright,
Showing in style you now called “quaint”
The legend of the local saint.
Christ’s passion in the glass is told,
His mother shone in blue and gold.
The roof was like an upturned boat,
And in its ribs carved angels float.
Here in the nave some kneel to pray
While others talk and children play,
For Stoke St Petroc Church is all
The poor folk have — their village hall,
Their club and school; the parish heart
Is this used nave, the people’s part.
But there beyond the carven screen
The twinkling altar lights are seen
[Profaner feet have never trod,
This is the place for priests of God].
To keep these altars richly dressed
Merchants and guilds have given their best
And paid a chantry priest to say
Mass for their families every day.
Three centuries have worn the stone
And George the Third is on the throne.
The screen is there, but where the rood
Above the painted panels stood
With Christ on cross, the royal arms
Displays its handsome, sculptured charms.
[The Reformation’s been and gone
And what we’ve left to look upon
Is still like what was there before,
A good deal less, a good deal more.]
The chantry chapel’s furnished new
To make a curtained family pew.
Communion’s in the English tongue
And metric’lly the Psalms are sung
From the west gallery by a choir.
The pulpit is a good deal higher
And tall box-pews hide sleeping heads.
The old stained glass has lost its leads
And clear glass has been substituted.
The parson locally reputed
To be a man of mighty learning
Does little for the sum he’s earning;
He preaches only once a week
With long quotations from the Greek
With which no villager can grapple
So most of them have gone to Chapel.
In 1881 the squire
Decided that he ought to hire
The smartest London architect
For Stoke St Petroc to inspect
Our church. And when the great man came
And left, things not at all the same.
He said the screen was “far too late
For a church of such an early date”,
And so alas! he cut it down.
He sold the pews for half-a-crown
And tiled the floors just like a sink
And glazed the windows green and pink.
He scraped the plaster off the walls
And put in pitch-pine pews and stalls.
The changes were indeed immense
And so, of course, was the expense.
And now it’s 1957,
And still we try to get to heaven.
The church is there, restored it’s true,
But still the same the ages through,
With sacraments and creed the same
As in the days when Petroc came.
Poems in the Porch: The Radio Poems of John Betjeman edited by Kevin
Gardener
Continuum, £14.99
