Lawrence of Ambridge

In Competition No. 2510 you were asked to submit a scene from The Archers written in the style of D.H. Lawrence.

Entries were thin on the ground this week. Perhaps you just couldn’t face Lawrence and his much-mocked florid excesses — or maybe it was The Archers that put you off. Fewer didn’t mean worse, though, and there were some fine Lawrentian flourishes. Alanna Blake exploits parallels between Clarrie Grundy’s current tight-lipped disapproval of William’s new girlfriend Nic, and Paul Morel’s mother’s smouldering resentment towards Miriam Leivers in Sons and Lovers. A normally affable Eddie metamorphoses into the volatile and violent Walter Morel. Bill Greenwell mines the rich comic potential in the Worm of Ambridge storyline and in what Lawrence’s biographer John Worthen calls his ‘profuse, incremental repetitions’.
This week’s bonus fiver flutters into the lap of Basil Ransome-Davies, who nails Lawrence’s lapses into obstructive melodrama and reminds us why he was a target for feminist bile.