English poet and broadcaster John Betjeman was BOTD in 1906. Born in London to a prosperous middle-class family, he was educated at Marlborough College and attended Oxford University, where he befriended Evelyn Waugh, Louis MacNeice and W. H. Auden. He left without taking a degree, which he later blamed on his tutor C. S. Lewis, and worked as a gossip columnist for the Evening Standard, chronicling the exploits of the louche aristocratic circle known as the Bright Young Things. He published his first poetry collection, Mount Zion, in 1933, followed by a critical study of modern architecture, Ghastly Good Taste. Rejected for military service during World War Two, he worked for the Ministry of Information and later as a press attaché in Ireland. His international reputation blossomed after the 1958 publication of his Collected Poems, which became a bestseller in Britain and the United States. By the 1960s, he was one of the most popular poets of his generation, admired for his simple verse style and precise rendering of social nuance. His gentle mockery of middle-class English values was deftly summarised in his poem In Westminster Abbey: “Think of what our Nation stands for/ Books from Boots’ and country lanes/ Free speech, free passes, class distinction/ Democracy and proper drains.” His nostalgia for an idyllic lost England struck a chord with a public struggling with post-war austerity and rapid social change. After the war, he also became heavily involved in movements to conserve historic buildings, campaigning successfully to prevent the demolition of London’s St Pancras railway station, while directing scorn at the rapid house-building and industrialisation of post-war Britain. In 1972, he became the Poet Laureate, composing a series of popular (though critically mocked) poems to commemorate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and other Royal events. His 1973 TV documentary Metro-Land, exploring the suburban communities of outer London, was highly praised, leading to further television appearances. Betjeman married Penelope Chetwode in 1933, with whom he had two children. He pursued affairs with men and women throughout his marriage, most notably with Lady Elizabeth Cavendish and Margie Geddes, eventually prompting his separation from his wife. His bisexuality was a relatively open secret in his social circle, and he had a number of gay friends, including Lord Alfred Douglas. An adept user of gay slang Polari, he once wrote to a gay friend recommended the Alexandra Palace roller-skating rink as a cruising ground: “There are no less than five hundred cups of tea [men] there and an introduction can be effected at once.” In later life, he suffered from Parkinson’s disease, dying in 1984, aged 77.