The poets Charles Hamilton Sorley (1908-13) and John Betjeman (1920-5) had contrasting experiences at Marlborough College.

While Sorley was reminiscent of the Downs’ splendour whilst fighting in the war, Betjeman was scarred from the discipline, team sport and emphasis on classicism that school imposed on him.

Sorley’s affection for Marlborough stemmed from his love of the Downs. In July 1914, Sorley stated ‘I know it’s wrong of me, but I count myself as Wiltshire’. Sorley would go for walks and runs alone in the Downs and found the stillness amid only the rain and wind deeply stimulating.

Like Wordsworth, Sorley saw the affinity between nature and man as a way of understanding life. Whilst the Downs offered a starting point to his poetry, Sorley addressed wider views of the world.  

It wasn’t all pessimism for Betjeman, for he too traversed the downs; describing sketching expeditions into the Wiltshire countryside, and wrote of ‘the golden downs’ as he sat upon Silbury Hill.

Furthermore, while at Marlborough, both poets first experienced the power of the pen with Sorley and Betjeman publishing work in The Marlburian magazine.

Together with Anthony Blunt (Art Historian and Soviet spy), Betjeman worked on another magazine, The Heretick “to express their disapproval of the Establishment”, often targeting the dreaded team games.

Betjeman’s writing career can be traced to Marlborough where he first experienced the effect of his writing on others, describing ‘Court alive with the orange covers on black suits’.