My project is what might be called a ‘visual poem’, a small selection of images and accompanying verse to convey the feelings of the poems of John Betjeman’s Metroland. As broadcaster and writer, Betjeman both wrote poetry and filmed a 1973 BBC documentary to describe the area stretching from Baker Street up to Chorleywood in the heart of rural Hertfordshire. The term Metroland was coined by the marketing department of the Metropolitan railway in the 1920s and complete with glossy brochure was designed to entice city businessmen into the then suburban and rural idylls of Middlesex, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. With the land their own, the Metropolitan railway built up the areas their lines served, promising the best of both city and country life.
The project is split into two ‘parts’ with the first consisting of a set of 29 images and the second a short poem in the style of John Betjeman. The aim of the project is not to take the reader on an information based geographical tour of the area, nor is it to make any socio-political comment on the contrasting fortunes of north west London neighbours of the likes of St John’s Wood and Neasden. Rather I try to evoke the aspiring spirit of the suburbs and shires, the duality inherent in such pursuit of betterment, to convey to the reader a conceptual sense of this space.