In Competition No. 2912 you were invited to submit a tribute in verse to a once-popular foodstuff that has fallen out of favour.
Bill Greenwell’s entry (Spangles!) brought to mind childhood pleasures, as did Sid Field’s (Creamola) and Jayne Osborn’s (Angel Delight). But I still shudder at the memory of spam fritters, and Alan Millard’s attempt to make them sound appealing fell on stony ground:
More fit to nibble than to gnaw
But no less tasty, cooked or raw
Both Brian Allgar and Dorothy Pope mourned the passing of Fuller’s Walnut Cake, and Richard McCarthy submitted a rousing tribute to mutton in the style of Swinburne. All three deserve a commendation as do David Silverman, Philip Machin, Alanna Blake, Sylvia Fairley and Barbara Smoker.
The prize-winners, printed below, are rewarded with £30 apiece. This week’s bonus fiver belongs to Basil Ransome-Davies.
We shook our fists at Hitler when the Nazi bombers came
Like an airborne twentieth-century armada
To blast some of our cities to a hell of smoke and flame,
But we had a secret weapon in our larder.
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