LONDON, April 17 (UPI) -- Joan Hunter Dunn, immortalized in John Betjeman's poem, "A Subaltern's Love-song," died in a London nursing home at age 92, her son said.
Dunn was a muse for Betjeman -- embodying the ideal of the smoldering, sexually reserved Englishwomen during wartime, The Times of London reported Thursday.
Betjeman met Dunn, who died Friday, in the corridor of the wartime Ministry of Information seven decades ago when he was in the films division and she was on the catering staff.
"She never said she was proud to be his muse, but she did not consider it a joke. She just said that John was a nice man," Edward Jackson, Dunn's youngest son, told the Times.
While her portrayal in "A Subaltern's Love-song" was steamy, the relationship between Dunn and England's poet laureate was platonic, the Times said.
Her son, one of three survivors, said his mother dismissed gossip about an affair with Betjeman, "always saying 'I was in love with Dad.'"
