Betjeman’s paean to Brunel & the GWR

[Railwaygun]

Betjeman's 
lost love letter to Brunel
In 1966, the BBC broadcast a life of engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, with a script by the future poet laureate John Betjeman. Here, it appears in print for the very first time

Poetry


The Great Western Railway, engineered by Brunel, chugs through the English countryside in The Westbury Horse (1939) by Eric Ravilious Credit: Bridgeman Images
From Normandy in France my father came,

My father Marc Brunel, to make his name

Here by the Thames's wide slow-flowing shore,

To build a tunnel never known before.

At Wapping deep the entrance shafts he sank

From which to burrow to the Surrey bank,

A brick-lined passageway defying mud,

Thames quicksand, gravel, sewage, ooze and flood.

Defying flood? My father Marc Brunel

And I his son who helped him couldn't tell

What was to happen next. When tides were high

Our tunnel flooded. But we pumped it dry

And then we gave, from fears of flood released,

London's – the world's – first underwater feast.

Short was our triumph. In the water came,

Wrecking the tunnel and my father's name.

I, Isambard, his son henceforth must stand

Alone to conquer rivers, oceans, land.

I went to Bristol for a breath of air

After that foul Thames water. Gazing there

Across the Avon gorge I saw a span

Of height and depth as yet uncrossed by man.

Contemptible seemed bridge designs to me

By older men – for I was twenty-three.

Their schemes to cross the forge looked out of place,

Lacking imagination, force and grace.

I made my own in the Egyptian style,

A memory at Clifton of the Nile.

Needless to say with my design I won.

Bristol, all hail! With you my fame begun.

Those dreamy docks, that lambent waterside,

St Mary Redcliffe sleeping in the tide.

Bristol was losing in the race for trade

To giant strides that Liverpool had made.

Her surest route to London – waterway:

The locks through Bath alone took half a day,

Slowly through meadows, slow up Wiltshire downs,

By sleeping fields and sleepier country towns –

The Kennet and Avon for its day was fine,

But not so sure and fast a link as mine.

I would join Bristol by an iron road.

In new Egyptian style my arches strode.

The Wharncliffe viaduct across the Brent

Westward from London on its journey went.

A hundred years of merchandise and men

Have crossed my flat-arched viaduct since then.

Ours was a seven-foot gauge – our track was wide.

Long, straight and smooth it crossed the countryside,

Wider and faster than a coach or cart –

Triumph of engineering and of art.

Through marshy Middlesex and on to Bucks –

London to Bristol linked by lines of trucks.

People opposed us – landlords, mayors, MPs,

They called the railway mania a disease.

And so my fine Great Western came to rest

At Taplow first and waited to go west.

Eton's headmaster thought my railway's noise

Would lure to London all his bashful boys,

So he objected – as you might suppose.

At Maidenhead still more contention rose.

The turnpike people, loss of tolls their dread,

Objected to my railway bridge. They said

The flat brick arches wouldn't stand the strain

Of cart or carriage, let alone a train.

How wrong they were. How loyal were my men.

The great Great Western service founded then

Has kept alive since 1839

The living reputation of the line.

A railway service like a ship at sea

Depends upon its crew. These men to me

Were life and blood, were maintenance and crew.

They built the line and from them my strength I drew.

That Sonning cutting was an awkward bit.

One bank kept sliding down – we planted it

At Reading where canal and river meet.

I crossed my rival and my bridge was neat.


Brunel
Credit: SSPL via Getty Images
And now the plain of Berkshire open lies,

Arable acres under flying skies.

Each mile was turbulent of my survey.

Landlords and farmers argued rights of way

Till, arguing done, I laid my iron trail

Down through the middle of the White Horse Vale.

I sketched, I surveyed, kept the rustics calm,

Telling them railways brought them wealth, not harm.

In many a wretched inn I stayed the night,

In many a country church I took delight,

And built our houses at the halfway mile

At Steventon in local Tudor style.

How many a journey on my mare I made

Before that broad-gauge track was truly laid.

And so the line to Bristol nearer drew,

And over half my mighty task was through.

Stations I built to suit the countryside

Of local stone, foursquare, verandahed wide,

And this is how they looked when in their pride.

The Company's offices in Tudor style

I built at Bristol's Temple Meads meanwhile.

Bristol, which gave my great Great Western birth,

Should have the finest wooden roof on earth.

Over its terminus and still today

That same roof shelters a neglected bay

In the same spot. We will draw out, my friend,

And watch the progress from the Bristol end.

We cut through cliffs. My tunnel mouths I formed

Like Norman castles waiting to be stormed.

Bridges were outer walls across my path,

And so I pierced the hills to Roman Bath.

Bath station front recalled a Tudor past:

'Twas once like Bristol, wooden roofed and vast,

But when I came to lay the track outside

I thought of Bath in all her Georgian pride,

And Roman-looking was my cutting deep

Leading from Wiltshire – churches, elms and sheep.

A railway should be simple, I maintain,

And unobtrusive as a country lane

Or monumental. Thus at Chippenham I

Raised it on arches, Roman plain and high,

Since much defaced. But now I well recall

We reached the greatest obstacle of all –

That hill at Box. I saw its limestone slope

And knew a tunnel was my only hope.

A two-mile tunnel – how could it be done?

I saw those gravestones in the Wiltshire sun:

Here in Box village men had worked in stone

For generations. I must raise my own

Strong band of quarrymen. One hundred died

Carving this cavern from the hill's inside

Where rocks came tumbling down to crush and kill

And water poured the quarryings to fill.

We finished it in 1841,

And thus was ended what we had begun,

And the completion of my grand design

I celebrated with an entrance fine –

London to Bristol linked by railway line.

My broad-gauge trains! Design, upkeep, repair

I soon assigned to Daniel Gooch's care,

A dour North countryman, my quiet friend

Who worked beside me loyal to the end.

Near Swindon Gooch laid out to my design

Works one side, houses t'other side the line

With gardens round them, drying grounds and parks,

And their own church by Gilbert Scott, St Mark's.

Workers in foundry, yard, repairing shed,

From these trim cottages their race was bred.

They brought the words "Great Western" into fame,

Adding new lustre to old Swindon's name.

A friendly family grown large since then,

Proud to be thought of as Great Western men,

And in the works – they called the works "inside" –

Turning out splendid engines was their pride.

Their work demanded long-experienced skill.

Let cold administration have its will,

They were "Great Western" and they are so still.

Father to son, their skill was handed down.

Swindon remains at heart a railway town.


Betjeman in 1974
Credit: Getty Images
Swindon with Gooch! I realised my dream.

We conquered England by the power of steam,

And by the sad canal's defeated side

I looked with pity upon fallen pride.

Lost hopes upon the water! There remained

The final triumph that my father gained.

Insolvency, contempt and danger past,

His great Thames tunnel was complete at last.

Mighty rejoicings! souvenirs and bells!

Hailed for his genius! visited by swells!

And finally created bachelor knight

To soothe his failing frame. I was all right,

Never felt better. From my drawing board

A constant stream of inspiration poured –

A huge conservatory, cast iron and glass,

Over a cutting, thus there came to pass,

By little sketches, each improved upon,

My London Terminus at Paddington.

Scene of arrivals and farewells and tears,

How elegantly still it wears its years.

But what's a train for Bristol only bound?

With steam and iron I'll gird the world around.

Start slow at first. By Temple Meads you see

My handsome office for the B & E

(Bristol & Exeter). I built their track,

Broad-gauge of course, and flung across its back

This handsome bridge near Weston-super-Mare.

And Exeter – I had a failure there.

From here, my Exeter St Thomas station:

The line, I fear, went into liquidation.

No finer stretch of railway can be seen

Than this between the rivers Exe and Teign.

The broadening Exe, the mild South Devon air,

The smell of salt and seaweed everywhere.

That atmospheric railway scheme of mine

As a conception was extremely fine,

And had it worked the force of vacuum power

Would have drawn trains at eighty miles an hour

Without a sound along this Devon shore,

A rate of motion unattained before.

Its pumping stations I designed to be

Italian palaces beside the sea.

When I have had an extra glass of wine

I mourn the Devon atmospheric line.

But for what purposes is money lent

Except to make a bold experiment?

When I abandoned hope the tensions eased,

So I went back to steam and Gooch was pleased.

Through the red sandstone cliffs my track was good,

Subject of course to heavy seas and flood.

But oh, mon dieu! with Newton Abbot passed

I thought I'd met my Waterloo at last.

Those southwest Devon hills – beyond the river

Impossible valleys: nothing level ever.

I smoked cigars. They kept away the midges

As in despair I stood on ancient bridges

And thought of floods from Dartmoor rushing down,

Miles from a village, let alone a town.

Nature all around me: Plymouth unattained,

And universal torrents when it rained.

And this was how I spanned each deep ravine,

This was my contribution to the scene –

Stone piers supporting viaducts of wood,

And while they lasted they were strong and good.

At length I saw the Tamar broader far

Than Somerset or Devon rivers are.

Already I had built the Cornwall line.

Stone piers held viaducts of Memel pine.

Slender and frail they may have looked, but they

For half a century carried ore and clay,

Though later generations than my own

Have built my viaducts again in stone.

My piers still stand beside them sad and lone,

Gothic and picturesque and ivy-hung,

The sort of thing I liked to sketch when young.

Rich mineral Cornwall! All those tons of ore

Had to be shipped on reaching Saltash shore.

Redruth, St Austell, Camborne, Truro, Hayle

Could get no further by my iron rail.

Easy enough to bridge these shallow strands,

But how cross Tamar's swiftly running sands?

Deep in mid-stream I sunk a central pier

And slung from either bank what you see here:

Two hollow girders which I hoped would bring

Cornwall to Devon in an iron sling.

Enough of bridges, railways – on my dream

Of compassing the ocean with my steam.

At Bristol docks now full of weeds and silt

A new Great Western – for the sea I built

A paddle steamer whose enormous sides

Easily rode Atlantic waves and tides.

She reached New York but gained the second place –

Sirius of Liverpool had won the race.

At Bristol next I built them something new –

An iron steamship with propeller screw,

The biggest in the world, my famed Great Britain.

Bound for New York, the Irish coast she hit on

And lay off Antrim stranded, out of reach,

Like an old saucepan left on Brighton Beach.

The devil take them: I'm not beaten yet.

I'll build them something that they won't forget.

Paddle and screw combined and ironclad,

Take or leave her. Let them think me mad,

Into my drawings all my skill I hurled

To build the biggest steamship in the world.

London should have the contract. Millwall slips

Have seen the launching of our finest ships.

I'll build her here. D'you see her rising sides?

Look how the paddle o'er the houses rides.

See her propeller shaft, her narrow hull.

There are the damned financiers, greedy, dull,

That crook Scott Russell – but the working men,

They were my friends as always. With them then

I used to stand and smoke my time away,

Getting her ready for the launching day.

My ironclad, my fine Great Eastern see,

My co-creditors standing on the quay,

And looks of apprehension on them all.

She's off! She rides! Then fare you well, Millwall.

Never was such a floating palace seen,

Never were greater engines, nothing mean

About her fittings, and the grand saloon

Splendid enough to make the ladies swoon!

She's off! She rides! And I am leaving too,

Of Saltash bridge I took my final view.

Cornwall to Devon joined by rail at last,

The journey of my life was nearly past.

Too ill to move I lay upon my back

While Gooch's engine drew me down the track

Too ill to move. Dying at fifty-three,

This world means nothing. Now the world to be!

Such humbling thoughts upon a long last ride!

After Brunel got the news, he died

Broken like his Great Eastern, not to know

The swift repairs his ship would undergo.

How then with Gooch as captain she was able

To lay the first great transatlantic cable,

And after laying that lay many more

Like some great spider threaded shore to shore.

Never to know his fellow engineers

Would sling those chains between his Clifton piers,

Building Brunel's bridge to his memory.

This world means nothing. Now the world to be!

This poem appears as "The Finest Work in England: I K Brunel" in Harvest Bells: New and Uncollected Poems by John Betjeman, published by Bloomsbury Continuum

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