Yateley Fact and Fiction: Did a Yateley Gravestone inspire a John Betjeman poem?
Myth: Sydney Loader thought the grave of George and Rosamund Hunter Dunn (Grave JE5&6) may possibly have inspired John Betjeman's poem "A Subaltern's love song" about a Miss Joan Hunter Dunn. Sydney Loader knew John Betjeman had visited Yateley church during the 1950s, as Betjeman had written to him. In the 1950s the public did not know that the poem was based on Betjeman's infatuation for a real woman.
The Myth is false, but the grave is that of Miss Joan Hunter Dunn's father and step-mother.
The poem was inspired by Miss Joan Hunter Dunn (1915-2008), whom Betjeman met when he was in the ministry of Information in 1940, and was written soon afterwards. The Times Obituary of Joan Jackson (nee Hunter Dunn) reports that
"In a radio broadcast of 1976 he recalled how he had first encountered her. "I was walking down a corridor at the Ministry of Information with my friend Reggie Ross Williamson when we saw a beautiful girl with red hair. 'Gosh, look!' I said. 'I bet she's a doctor's daughter from Aldershot.' And she was." That was not quite accurate: in fact Joan Hunter Dunn came from Farnborough in Hampshire — but Betjeman later maintained, "that was near enough Aldershot to count"."
Miss Hunter Dunn's father was Dr George Hunter Dunn, a doctor from Farnborough, who was at one time a Churchwarden of St Mark's Church Farnborough. According to the Independent obituary Joan's mother was born Mabel Liddelow, who died in 1916, aged 36, and Dr Hunter Dunn remarried in 1920. His new wife, Rosamond, also died, in 1921 and was buried in Yateley churchyard. Dr George Hunter Dunn remarried yet again but at his death he was buried at Yateley beside his second wife to form a double grave. Their monumental inscriptions read:
On the cross:
IN TUAS MANUS DOMINE (Into your hands O Lord)
On the step:
GIVING THANKS TO GOD FOR
THE DEAR MEMORY OF
ROSAMOND
WIFE OF GEORGE HUNTER DUNN
OF SOUTH FARNBOROUGH.
AT REST AUGT 22ND 1921. AGE 27.
"BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART,
FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD."
Recumbant Tablet:
TO
THE DEAR MEMORY OF
GEORGE HUNTER DUNN, M.A. M.B., B.Ch, (Cantab)
OF FARNBOROUGH, IN THIS COUNTY.
THE LOVED HUSBAND OF EVELYN HUNTER DUNN;
JULY 2ND 1880 - MARCH 17TH 1950.
FOR WHOSE DEVOTED LIFE GOD'S HOLY NAME BE PRAISED.
WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME, SHALL NEVER DIE.
What we do not yet know is why Dr Hunter Dunn chose to bury his wife Rosamond at Yateley - did she have some previous connection with Yateley?
Further reading about Betjeman and Joan Hunter Dunn
The Times article about the death of Joan Hunter Dunn
The Times Obituary of Joan Hunter Dunn
The Independent Obituary of Joan Hunter Dunn
The story of how Joan Hunter Dunn was revealed as a real person in 1965 This article includes the full text of the poem
Page created by RHJ 22.4.2008
(c) The Yateley Society, 2008
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