Uploaded June 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a virtual movie of the renowned English reciter of poetry Betty Mulcahy reading "The Salutation" by the great mystic,Cleric and poet Thomas Traherne.
Thomas Traherne's (1636 or 1637 - 1674) "The Salutation" is a 'metaphysical poem.' After getting his M.A. from Oxford he took holy orders and served the Anglican Church faithfully till his death. He was a very humble and self effacing person whose literary worth was not recognized in his own life time. His poems were published only in 1903 in the "Poetical Works" and in 1910 in "Poems of Felicity."
The theme of his religious metaphysical poem "The Salutation" is about the life cycle of a Christian believer's soul.
Chronologically, the poem begins in the sixth stanza. Traherne tells us that God had created this earth long before he was born and prepared it for him by making it inhabitable and adorned it in a splendid manner. Traherne acknowledges his relationship with God as a true Christian believer by stating that he is "His son and heir."
Betty Mulcahy - , died in 2012 aged 92, shewas an acclaimed verse reading artist, broadcaster, writer and educator.
Born in Slough, Berkshire, to Stanley Upton, a shoemaker for Eton college, and his wife Kitty, a primary school teacher, Betty greatly admired her father, who was also an amateur comic actor and one of the mainstays of the Slough amateur dramatic and operatic society. Betty loved seeing him perform, often at the Theatre Royal Windsor.
Betty's first husband, Squadron Leader Pat Thornton-Brown, was killed in action in 1943. Her second marriage, in 1947, to Edward Mulcahy, brought with it the responsibility for acting as a mother to his three small children, Margaret and twins Jane and Michael, from a previous marriage. Betty's initial training in mime at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama had been disrupted by the second world war and she turned to verse speaking, following success in the final of the English Festival of Spoken Poetry.
Taking her cue from this, she initiated successful collaborations with a number of leading poets, broadcasters and educationists based at the Midland Arts Association, the Midland region of the BBC, Anglia Television, the Poetry Society, Rada and Central. She performed to audiences across the English-speaking world and spent 10 years in the 80s touring the UK with the Michael Garrick Jazz trio. She toured a show based on the life and poetry of Stevie Smith in the 80s and 90s, and in 1984 established the national Speak-a-Poem competition.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
Here's a virtual movie of the renowned English reciter of poetry Betty Mulcahy reading "The Salutation" by the great mystic,Cleric and poet Thomas Traherne.
Thomas Traherne's (1636 or 1637 - 1674) "The Salutation" is a 'metaphysical poem.' After getting his M.A. from Oxford he took holy orders and served the Anglican Church faithfully till his death. He was a very humble and self effacing person whose literary worth was not recognized in his own life time. His poems were published only in 1903 in the "Poetical Works" and in 1910 in "Poems of Felicity."
The theme of his religious metaphysical poem "The Salutation" is about the life cycle of a Christian believer's soul.
Chronologically, the poem begins in the sixth stanza. Traherne tells us that God had created this earth long before he was born and prepared it for him by making it inhabitable and adorned it in a splendid manner. Traherne acknowledges his relationship with God as a true Christian believer by stating that he is "His son and heir."
Betty Mulcahy - , died in 2012 aged 92, shewas an acclaimed verse reading artist, broadcaster, writer and educator.
Born in Slough, Berkshire, to Stanley Upton, a shoemaker for Eton college, and his wife Kitty, a primary school teacher, Betty greatly admired her father, who was also an amateur comic actor and one of the mainstays of the Slough amateur dramatic and operatic society. Betty loved seeing him perform, often at the Theatre Royal Windsor.
Betty's first husband, Squadron Leader Pat Thornton-Brown, was killed in action in 1943. Her second marriage, in 1947, to Edward Mulcahy, brought with it the responsibility for acting as a mother to his three small children, Margaret and twins Jane and Michael, from a previous marriage. Betty's initial training in mime at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama had been disrupted by the second world war and she turned to verse speaking, following success in the final of the English Festival of Spoken Poetry.
Taking her cue from this, she initiated successful collaborations with a number of leading poets, broadcasters and educationists based at the Midland Arts Association, the Midland region of the BBC, Anglia Television, the Poetry Society, Rada and Central. She performed to audiences across the English-speaking world and spent 10 years in the 80s touring the UK with the Michael Garrick Jazz trio. She toured a show based on the life and poetry of Stevie Smith in the 80s and 90s, and in 1984 established the national Speak-a-Poem competition.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
