Betjeman took Archie up to Oxford with him, providing the inspiration for Sebastian Flyte's teddy Aloysius in Brideshead Revisited. (Evelyn Waugh was a contemporary of Betjeman's at Oxford.) Archie also featured in Archie and the Strict Baptists, a story written by Betjeman for his children in the 1940s and published in 1977, in which he enjoys riding a hedgehog to chapel, and preaching when the Pastor is not available. He flies on home–made wings over the Berkshire Downs, and enjoys amateur archaeology (believing molehills to be the graves of baby Druids).
© Haydn Thompson 2018