Editing John Betjeman (section)

===After the Second World War===
[[File:John Betjeman's house on Cloth Fair.jpg|thumb|Betjeman's house on [[Cloth Fair]] in the [[City of London]], marked with a [[blue plaque]] (August 2007)]]
By 1948, Betjeman had published more than a dozen books. Five of these were verse collections, including one in the USA. Sales of his ''Collected Poems'' in 1958 reached 100,000.<ref name="FandF">{{Cite web | title = John Betjeman  | work = Faber & Faber | date = n.d. | access-date = 31 July 2018 | url = https://www.faber.co.uk/author/john-betjeman/ }}</ref> The popularity of the book prompted [[Ken Russell]] to make a film about him, ''John Betjeman: A Poet in London'' (1959). Filmed in 35&nbsp;mm and running 11 minutes and 35 seconds, it was first shown on the [[BBC]]'s ''[[Monitor (UK TV series)|Monitor]]'' programme.<ref name="BFI2014">{{Cite web | title =John Betjeman: A Poet in London (1959) | work = BFI Screenonline |year = 2014 | access-date = 31 July 2018 | url = http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/929290/index.html }}</ref> From 1945 till 1951 he lived at The Old Rectory, [[Farnborough, Berkshire|Farnborough]], Wantage, Berkshire.<ref name=register/> In 1951 he moved to the Mead in Wantage, until 1971. His daughter Candida was married in the church there in May 1963.

Betjeman continued writing guidebooks and works on architecture during the 1960s and 1970s and began to broadcast.  Betjeman was closely associated with the culture and spirit of [[Metro-land]], as outer reaches of the [[Metropolitan Railway]] were known before the war. 
In 1967, Betjeman was considered as a candidate to be the new [[Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom]], following the death of [[John Masefield]]. He was rejected after the [[Prime Minister's Appointments Secretary]] John Hewitt consulted with Dame [[Helen Gardner (critic)|Helen Gardner]], the [[Merton Professor of English]] at the [[University of Oxford]] (who stated that Betjeman was "a lightweight, amusing but rather trivial" with "critical views about [[the establishment]]") and Geoffrey Handley-Taylor, chair of [[The Poetry Society]] (who stated that Betjeman "called himself a poetic hack and there was some truth to this"). [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] [[Harold Wilson]] ultimately selected [[Cecil Day-Lewis]] after Hewitt recommended him over Betjeman, whom Hewitt described to Wilson as a "backward-looking choice" and "the songster of tennis lawns and cathedral cloisters".<ref name="BBC2023">{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66224984|work=[[BBC News]]|title=No 10 turned down Larkin, Auden and other poets for laureate job|date=19 July 2023|first=Sanchia|last=Berg}}</ref> 

Betjeman would become Poet Laureate in 1972 following the death of Day-Lewis, the first [[Knight Bachelor]] to be appointed (the only other, Sir [[William Davenant]], was knighted after his appointment). This role, combined with his profile from television appearances, ensured that his poetry reached a wider audience. Similarly to [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]], he managed to voice the thoughts and aspirations of many ordinary people while retaining the respect of many of his fellow poets. This is partly because of the apparently simple traditional metrical structures and rhymes he uses.<ref name="poetryarchive.org">{{Cite web | title = John Betjeman  | work = The Poetry Archive |year = 2016 | access-date = 31 July 2018 | url = https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/john-betjeman# }}</ref> 
In the early 1970s, he began a recording career of four albums on [[Charisma Records]] - ''Banana Blush'', ''Late Flowering Love'' (both 1974), ''Sir John Betjeman's Britain'' (1977) and ''Varsity Rag'' (1981) where his poetry reading is set to music composed by [[Jim Parker (composer)|Jim Parker]] with overdubbing by leading musicians of the time.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jul/31/tv-score-composer-and-betjeman-collaborator-jim-parker-dies-aged-88 'TV score composer and Betjeman collaborator Jim Parker dies aged 88'], in ''The Guardian'', 31 July 2023</ref> [[Madeleine Dring]] set five of Betjeman's poems to music in 1976, just before her death.<ref>Madeleine Dring. [https://shop.abrsm.org/shop/prod/Dring-Madeleine-5-Betjeman-Songs-voice-piano/608675 ''Five Betjeman Songs'' (1976)], published in 1980 by Weinberger</ref><ref>''Mojo'' No. 187 pp. 122</ref> His recording catalogue extends to nine albums, four singles and two compilations.

In 1973, he made a well-regarded television documentary for the BBC called ''[[Metro-Land (TV film)|Metro-Land]]'', directed by [[Edward Mirzoeff]].  In 1974, Betjeman and Mirzoeff followed up ''Metro-Land'' with ''[[A Passion for Churches]]'', a celebration of Betjeman's beloved [[Church of England]], filmed entirely in the [[Diocese of Norwich]]. In 1975, he proposed that the Fine Rooms of [[Somerset House]] should house the [[Turner Bequest]], so helping to scupper the plan of the [[Minister for the Arts (United Kingdom)|Minister for the Arts]] for a [[Theatre Museum]] to be housed there. In 1977, the BBC broadcast ''The Queen's Realm: A Prospect of England'', an aerial anthology of English landscape, music and poetry, selected by Betjeman and produced by Edward Mirzoeff, in celebration of the [[Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II|Queen's Silver Jubilee]].

Betjeman was fond of the ghost stories of [[M. R. James]] and supplied an introduction to [[Peter Haining (author)|Peter Haining]]'s book ''M. R. James&nbsp;– Book of the Supernatural''. He was susceptible to the supernatural; [[Diana Mitford]] recalled Betjeman staying at her country home, [[Biddesden House]] in Wiltshire, in the 1920s. She said: "he had a terrifying dream, that he was handed a card with wide black edges, and on it his name was engraved, and a date. He knew this was the date of his death".<ref name="Mitford2008">{{cite book|last=Mosley|first=Diana |author-link=Diana Mitford|title=A Life of Contrasts: The Autobiography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cyYMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA83|year=2008|publisher=Gibson Square|isbn=978-1-906142-14-8|page=83}}</ref>