Penelope Chetwode

Penelope Chetwode (1910–1986) was an English travel writer.^[1] She was the daughter of Field Marshal Lord Chetwode, and the wife of poet laureate John Betjeman. She grew up in northern India, returning to the region in later life. She is best known for Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalucia, 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".^[2][3] Two Middle-Aged Ladies has been reissued by Eland Books. 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

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. She died in India in 1986.^[4]

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