of 4 per cent meant that private housing was well within the range of most middle class and many working-class pockets. This was a potent factor in the growth of Metro-land: for example, in the first three decades of the 20th century the population of Harrow Weald rose from 1,500 to 11,000 and that of Pinner from 3,000 to 23,000. In 1932 Northwick Park was said to have grown over the previous five years at the rate of 1,000 houses annually and Rayners Lane to "repay a visit at short intervals to see it grow". Sir John Betjeman In the mid-20th century the spirit of Metro-land was evoked in three "late chrysanthemums" by Sir John Betjeman (1906–1984), Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death: "Harrow-on-the-Hill" ("When melancholy autumn comes to Wembley / And electric trains are lighted after tea"), "Middlesex" ("Gaily into Ruislip Gardens / Runs the red electric train") and "The Metropolitan Railway" ("Early Electric! With what radiant hope / Men formed this many-branched electrolier"). In his autobiographical Summoned by Bells (1960) Betjeman recalled that "Metroland / Beckoned us out to lanes in beechy Bucks". Described much later by The Times as the "hymnologist of Metroland", Betjeman reached a wider audience with his celebrated documentary for BBC Television, Metro-land, directed by Edward Mirzoeff, which was first broadcast on 26 February 1973 and was released as a DVD 33 years later. The critic Clive James, who judged the programme "an instant classic", observed that "it saw how the district had been destroyed by its own success". To mark the centenary of Betjeman's birth his daughter Candida Lycett Green (born 1942) spearheaded a series of celebratory railway events, including an excursion on 2 September 2006 from Marylebone to Quainton Road, now home of the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre. Lycett Green noted of the planning of this trip that among the fine details considered were which filling to have in the baguettes on the train through Metro-land and how long it would stop on the track so that the poem "Middlesex" could be read over the tannoy. The event was in the tradition of earlier commemorations of "Metro-land", such as a centenary parade of rolling stock at Neasden in 1963 and celebrations in 2004 to mark the centenary of the Uxbridge branch. Avengerland Metro-land (notably west Hertfordshire) formed the backdrop for the 1960s ABC TV series The Avengers, whose popular imagery was deployed