Editing John Betjeman (section)

===After university===
[[File:Wadebridge, The John Betjeman Centre Memorabilia Room - geograph.org.uk - 211005.jpg|thumb|right|The John Betjeman Centre Memorabilia Room showing the office from his home in [[Trebetherick]]]]
Betjeman left Oxford without a degree. Whilst there, however, he had made the acquaintance of people who would later influence his work, including [[Louis MacNeice]] and [[W. H. Auden]].<ref name="Taylor-Martin1983">{{Cite book |last=Taylor-Martin |first=Patrick |url={{google books|id=eMIVAAAAMAAJ|page=35|keywords=Wystan Auden|plainurl=yes}} |title=John Betjeman, his life and work |publisher=Allen Lane |year=1983 |page=35}}</ref> He worked briefly as a private secretary, school teacher and film critic for the ''[[Evening Standard]]'', where he also wrote for their high-society gossip column, the "[[Londoner's Diary]]". He was employed by the ''[[Architectural Review]]'' between 1930 and 1935, as a full-time assistant editor, following their publishing of some of his freelance work. [[Timothy Mowl]] (2000) says, "His years at the ''Architectural Review'' were to be his true university".<ref name="Mowl2011" /> At this time, while his prose style matured, he joined the [[MARS Group]], an organisation of young modernist architects and architectural critics in Britain.

In 1937, Betjeman was a [[churchwarden]] at [[Uffington, Oxfordshire|Uffington]], the Berkshire village (in [[Oxfordshire]] since boundary changes of 1974) where he lived from 1934 to 1945. That year, he paid for the cleaning of the church's royal arms and later presided over the conversion of the church's [[oil lamp]]s to electricity.<ref name= Delaney>{{Cite book |last=Delaney |first=Frank |title=Betjeman Country |date=1983 |publisher=Paladin (Granada) |isbn=0-586-08499-1 |page=158}}</ref>

The ''[[Shell Guides]]'' were developed by Betjeman and [[Jack Beddington]], a friend who was publicity manager with [[Shell-Mex & BP]], to guide Britain's growing number of motorists around the counties of Britain and their historical sites. They were published by the Architectural Press and financed by [[Royal Dutch Shell|Shell]]. By the start of World War II, 13 had been published, of which ''[[Cornwall]]'' (1934) and ''[[Devon]]'' (1936) were written by Betjeman. A third, ''[[Shropshire]]'', was written with and designed by his good friend [[John Piper (artist)|John Piper]] in 1951.

In 1939, Betjeman was rejected for military service in World War II but found war work with the films division of the [[Ministry of Information (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Information]]. In 1941, he became British press attaché in neutral [[Dublin]], Ireland, working with [[John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby|Sir John Maffey]]. He is reported to have been selected for murder by the [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|IRA]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gibbons |first=Fiachra |date=23 April 2000 |title=How verse saved poet laureate from the IRA |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/apr/22/books.booksnews |access-date=7 April 2020 |website=The Guardian}}</ref> The order was rescinded after a meeting with an unnamed Old IRA man who was impressed by his works.

Betjeman wrote poems based on his experiences in [[The Emergency (Ireland)|Ireland]] during the "Emergency" (the war) including "The Irish Unionist's Farewell to Greta Hellstrom in 1922" (written during the war) which contained the refrain "Dungarvan in the rain".<ref name="Betjeman 1922">{{Cite web |last=Betjeman |first=John |date=1922 |title=The Irish Unionist's farewell to Greta Hellastrom |url=http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_betjeman/poems/810}}</ref> The object of his affections, "Greta", remained a mystery until revealed to have been a member of a well-known [[Protestant Ascendancy|Anglo-Irish]] family of Western [[county Waterford]]. His official brief included establishing friendly contacts with leading figures in the Dublin literary scene: he befriended [[Patrick Kavanagh]], then at the very start of his career. Kavanagh celebrated the birth of Betjeman's daughter with a poem "Candida"; another well-known poem contains the line ''Let John Betjeman call for me in a car''. From March to November 1944 Betjeman was assigned to another wartime job, working on publicity for the Admiralty in [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]].{{cn|date=August 2021}}