Much have I travelled

In Competition No. 3122, to mark the demise of the 178-year-old travel company, you were invited to submit a poem about Thomas Cook. The firm may have hit the buffers, but many entries featured its eponymous founder’s original offering — railway travel and Temperance tours — which would be just the job in our clean-living, climate-change-challenged times.
 
In a large and excellent crop, the six below stood out and earn their authors £25.
 

James Cook explored, and met the end
Lèse-majesté procures,
But Thomas Cook began the trend
For organising tours.
 
He was dynamic, fired with hope,
And thus the business boomed,
Though nonetheless its moral scope
Was tragically foredoomed.
 
They started out as Temperance jaunts,
Those earnest early treks.
Now low, disreputable haunts
Draw mobs for drink and sex.
 
That Spanish coast which once for some
Was vividly romantic
Is foreign-yahoo playground from
Cebère to the Atlantic.
Basil Ransome-Davies
 
When Thomas laid on special trains
for groups who spurned the demon drink,
he said, ‘there must be greater gains,
the world’s my oyster, now I think
I’ll take more people for a ride’ —
he saw a chance and so he took it,
‘Here’s to tourism,’ he cried,
then said, ‘Don’t book it, Thomas Cook it.