On some days Betjeman was inspired. A particular favourite of mine is his commentary for a sequence we shot at Castle Howard. He gazed at the shots for a while, and then said he would like to retire to the composition cell. This "composition cell" was a tea-making and broom cupboard, where he could shut himself off from noise, chat, and phone calls. When he came out, about an hour later, he was waving this newly-created 18th-century verse:

Stay, traveller! With no irreverent haste,
Approach the mansion of a man of taste.
Hail, Castle Howard! Hail, Vanbrugh's noble dome,
Where Yorkshire in her splendour rivals Rome!
Here the proud footman to the butler bows
But kisses Lucy when she milks the cows.
Here a proud butler on the steward waits
But shares his mistress at the Castle gates.
Here fifty damsels list my lady's bells
And a whole parish in one mansion dwells.
Chef, Housekeeper and humblest Houseboy, all
In due gradation of the servants' hall.
Dependent on the slightest frown or smile
Of him who holds the Earldom of Carlisle.

It didn't always come so easily. For reasons none of us could fathom, Betjeman sometimes got bogged down. It took three whole days of depression and gloom, agonising at the Steenbeck over a few not very special shots of East Anglia, to finally settle on:

Far over in England, how peaceful are names
Like Deeping St Nicholas, Deeping St James,
Long strings of rich soil and low houses of men,
Where slow flows the Welland through Lincolnshire fen.

He wouldn't hesitate to filch an extract from his own existing poetry if it seemed to fit, triumphantly brandishing it when he arrived as if it were newly composed overnight. Occasionally, when really stuck — as, for example, with the ending for "The Englishman's Home" — he would chance upon something apposite elsewhere, a privately-published prayer in this case, and just slot it in.

I think he enjoyed the cutting-room so much because there he was part of a small, protected, closely-knit team, full of jokes and laughter and fun. He would entertain us by reeling off from memory the limericks of his friend Lord Berners, or reading aloud the hilarious homoerotic poems of the Rev E.E. Bradford. He brought his friends in too, to show them what he was up to, and to gauge their reactions. Paul Paget came, the architect and church restorer; Adrian Daintrey, the artist; but none made as strong an impression as his good friend Margie Geddes, warm and bubbly, giving John the love and reassurance he craved.