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.
