Penelope Chetwode

Penelope Valentine Hester Chetwode, Lady Betjeman (14 February 1910 – 11 April 1986) was an English travel writer.^[1][2] She was the only daughter of Field Marshal Lord Chetwode, and the wife of poet laureate Sir John Betjeman. She was born at Aldershot and grew up in northern India, returning to the region in later life.

Career[]

She is best known for Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia (1963), her account of travelling through southern Spain on horseback in the summer of 1961. The book has been widely praised: The Independent called it "a classic work of adventure and humour" while Kate Kellaway in The Guardian called it "a charming, intrepid story."^[3][4] In 2012, Two Middle-Aged Ladies was reissued by Eland Books.^[5] Chetwode also wrote Kulu: The End of the Habitable World (1972), an account of her trek from Shimla to the head of the Rohtang Pass.

Personal life[]

Penelope Chetwode memorial. Near Sarahan, Himachal Pradesh

Chetwode married John Betjeman in London in 1933; the two had become acquainted through their association with the Architectural Review magazine. They had two children, a son named Paul and a daughter named Candida, now better known as the writer Candida Lycett Green. But the marriage eventually broke down, and Chetwode converted to Roman Catholicism in 1948. Later in life she retreated to New House, a cottage on Cusop Hill above the literary town of Hay-on-Wye with her horse. She died in Mutisher, India in 1986,^[6] leading a group of tourists on a trek through the Himalayas.

References[]