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.