Sir John Betjeman's last poem

Found - a broadside poem poem of twenty lines in honour of the famous old central London church St.Mary-le-Strand. It dates from about 1980 and is signed by John Betjeman in what one cataloguer calls his 'frail hand of old age'. It was published from his address at 29 Radnor Walk, SW3 and was part of the campaign to raise funds for the restoration of this masterpiece of baroque.

This copy came with a letter from the church to a professor at Ilorin University, Nigeria. The secretary of the trust, a Ms Anne Butters, thanks him for his £20 donation and informs him  that JB's publisher, John Murray, says that this was the last poem he ever wrote. So far unknown to 'go ogle' (as he may have called it) and not in any major UK library, it is decidedly scarce...
A single sheet of imitation parchment paper, printed in black on recto only. 296 x 206mm.



    St.Mary-Le-Strand

Shall we give Gibbs the go by
Great Gibbs of Aberdeen,
Who gave the town of Cambridge
The Senate House Serene;
Every son of Oxford
Can recognise he's home
When he sees upon the skyline
The Radcliffe's mothering dome.
Placid about the chimney pots
His sculptured steeples soar,
Windowless he designs his walls
Above the traffic's roar.
When ever you put stone on stone
You edified the scene,
Your chaste baroque was on its own,
Great Gibbs of Aberdeen.
A Tory and a Catholic
There's nothing quite so grand
As the baroque of your chapel
Of St Mary in the Strand.