To mark this year's centenary of the birth of the former poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman, a country-wide programme of events is being planned. They will celebrate his many well-remembered interests, which included architecture, railways and the countryside.

In the Vale of the White Horse, the memories of the poet are much more personal, for he and his wife spent more than 30 years living there.

The Wantage branch of the Betjeman Society is one of the most flourishing. It was founded in 1995, on the initiative of the vicar, Canon John Salter, who was its first chairman and is now president.

Members meet four times a year, and hold an annual dinner an event very much in the spirit of Betjeman, with his enjoyment of social life, said Canon Salter.

Another event, very much in the spirit of the times of the poet, is the branch's annual Pimms and Poetry evening, for which the members will this year be guests of the present owners of The Mead, Wantage, formerly the home of the Betjeman family.

The town has a permanent reminder of their residence, in the Betjeman Millennium Park, close to both The Mead and the parish church. The park has a poetry trail of six stones inscribed with lines from his poems, including On Leaving Wantage, 1972 beginning: I like the way these old brick garden walls Unevenly run down to Letcombe Brook.' .

The park was created by a group of local people who set up a charitable trust, the Letcombe Brook (Wantage) Charitable Trust, to acquire the land and develop it as a public open space. The official opening took place on May 18, 2002.

Wantage Town Council has recently proposed re-naming the lane, which leads from the parish church to the park as Betjeman's Lane.

John and Penelope Betjeman first came to the Vale then, before local government reorganisation in 1974, still in Berkshire when they moved into Garrards Farmhouse at Uffington. They arrived in 1934, a year after their marriage. Taking an interest in village life, Betjeman became a churchwarden, and joined the local wartime defence organisation.

In later life he recalled in a poem written in 1976 for a former neighbour in Uffington, Stuart Piggott, their time there.

He wrote: Stuart, I sit here in a grateful haze Recalling those spontaneous Berkshire days In straw-thatched, chalk-built, pre-war Uffington' And went on to recall memories of footpaths, cottage gardens, and St Mary's Church: Of purest Early English, tall and pale To tourists Cathedral of the Vale To us the church'.

Uffington has two celebrations of the centenary. A Blue Plaque is to be installed at Garrards Farmhouse to record Betjeman's residence there, and at Tom Brown's School Museum.

Betjeman's work and his associations with the village are the subject of a special exhibition at the museum. His daughter, Candida Lycett Green, attended its official opening.