Competition | 24 October 2009

In Competition No. 2618 you were invited to submit a sequel to Betjeman’s ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’. As a native of the home counties — born in Aldershot, raised in Camberley — I have a soft spot for Betjeman’s muse, who imparted a touch of glamour to this unlovely part of the world. The real Joan Hunter Dunn, white-coated goddess of the catering dept ardently admired by Betjeman from afar at the Ministry of Information in the early 1940s, was tracked down by a journalist 20 years later. And her life was, it turns out, a continuation of the poem. There was euonymus in her garden in Headley, Hants, and Joan Jackson, as she rather prosaically became, was still nimble about the tennis court well into her forties.

Which was a far cry from the less than glorious future that you envisaged for her. A record-breaking entry painted an almost exclusively grim picture of lost youth, disappointed hopes and sun-damaged skin. The roll-call of unlucky losers is long this week: step forward, Martin Parker, G.M. Davis, Sylvia Fairley, Tim Raikes and David Silverman. They were narrowly pipped by the winners, below, who get £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to Alan Millard.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
Amazed, how I gazed on the girl I had won,
My fearless fiancée, my volleying queen,
Parked here, in the Hillman, by Camberley Green.

But my heart gave a start when some fellow, alone,
Tapped twice on the window and said, ‘Is that Joan?’
‘Darling Denis!’ she cried. ‘What a super surprise!
It was Wimbledon, wasn’t it? My, how time flies!’

‘Game for a match?’ he said. ‘Last time I won.’
I prayed she would shun him, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
But she gladly agreed saying, ‘Meet you at three,
And after you’ve lost you can treat me to tea.’