John Betjeman Was First Published

¶ … John Betjeman was first published in 1937 and refers to a British town of that name and the poor living conditions then in evidence. The poet calls for the complete obliteration of the town by bombs a prelude to building a better and more livable environment. The poem has a satiric quality, making the reader ask if this is a serious proposal or hyperbole intended to highlight the terrible conditions in the town. The poet is effective at communicating his anger and the causes of that anger, doing so in a way that illuminates the problem in a human way.

The poem begins with a clear call to arms:

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!

It isn't fit for humans now,

There isn't grass to graze a cow.

Swarm over, Death! (1-4)

The use of the word "friendly" to characterize the bombs suggests how much the poet wants the town destroyed so that bombs would be friendly to him, not to Slough. Lines two and three suggest what is wrong with Slough, for it is not now fit for humans and unable to support animals. The call for Death shows that the poet has given up all other options and sees only one way to end this decaying horror.

The second stanza continues the call with further instructions and more reasons for the destruction the poet wants:

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens

Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,

Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,

Tinned minds, tinned breath. (5-8)

The food in the town is all "tinned," meaning it is in cans because no one can grow any food in this area. The last line of the stanza, referring to "Tinned minds, tinned breath" suggests that the people in the town have also been separated from humanity and made into commodities unable to think for themselves. The repetition of the word "tinned" creates an image that is quite strong.

The promise made by the town in the past is carried in the third stanza, even as the poet says that this promise was not kept and that what has been produced is a mess:

Mess up the mess they call a town- house for ninety-seven down

And once a week a half a crown

For twenty years. (9-12)

However, Betjeman was angered in 1940s when the town destroyed its rural tranquility... By adding some 850 factories almost overnight" (Cooper 76). At the time, Betjeman was the Poet Laureate of England. The change in the town brought about his expression of his distaste for that change in this poem, and he was ready to destroy it all rather than live with the factories that were altering the character of the town and lessening the value of the homes sold there.

The poet then turns his attention to the men who presumably made the decision to bring in all these factories, and he wants them destroyed as well. As with the rest of the poem, the poet again speaks as if giving an order, a peremptory order to destroy all that is wrong:

And get that man with double chin

Who'll always cheat and always win,

Who washes his repulsive skin

In women's tears... (13-16)

The poet calls for the bombs to "smash his deask of polished oak / and smash his hands so used to stroke" (17-18). However, he excuses those who work for the bankers and businessmen who have committed this destruction of the environment of the town:

But spare the bald young clerks who add

The profits of the stinking cad;

It's not their fault that they are mad,

They've tasted Hell. (21-24)

Joselyn Brooke finds that Betjeman in genrael is a poet who expresses his affection for his subjects, though she also cites "Slough" as an exception and writes,

Such 'hate' poems, though, are exceptional, and his more characteristic pieces are marked by that emotional ambivalence which has already been noted. Thus, though he hates Slough, he will write lovingly (if ironically) of such towns as Swindon, Camberley or Westgate-on-Sea, which to many people would seem hardly more attractive or en-livening than Slough itself. (Brooke para. 8) similar view of Betjeman is offered by Randle Manwaring as he writes,

Naturally, opinion is divided, a hundred years after his birth, on John Betjeman the poet. He is despised by some for the lightness of his touch and his joking references to the more unfortunate members of society. However, he has undoubtedly endeared himself to thousands (including, we understand. Princess Margaret) for his charming poems about tennis playing girls, horse-besotted teenagers and the night-club hostess, not forgetting single girls running their bath water in Camden Town. (Manwaring 25)

In terms of "Slough" in particular, Patrick Taylor-Martin states that this poem does not intend to be patronizing or clever in his wording but instead is expressed "sincere and unaffected" emotion (Taylor-Martin 61), though the critic also states that the poem "stays in the mind; its very ferocity ensures that it gets a hearing" (Taylor-Martin 67). Other critics find that Betjeman is indeed a satirist, though they find his satire to be faulty for one reason or another (Stanford 67). Betjeman's satiric thrust is most evident as he further describes "the bald young clerks" and their wives, those who apparently support the actions of the bankers and businessmen who are so intent on destroying the tranquility of the town of Slough. As the poet writes of these young men,