P.G. Wodehouse’s Aunts Among the Chickens

In Competition No. 3202, you were invited to replace the word ‘love’ in a well-known book title of your choice with a word of your choosing, and submit a short story of that title. This challenge was prompted by Christopher Hitchens’s description, in his memoir Hitch-22, of an after-dinner game he used to play with Salman Rushdie and other friends that involved replacing the word ‘love’ in famous book titles with the phrase ‘hysterical sex’.

In a medium-sized entry of a patchy standard, Nick Syrett, Rosemary Sayer, Anthony Whitehead, Catherine Edmunds and Madeleine McDonald stood out. The winners, printed below, are rewarded with £30 each.

‘Never mind the suffering little children,’ said Jake to Carson, who was the local vicar, ‘what about the ache in my leg?’   ‘Incipient old age?’ asked Carson.   Jake fairly bristled. ‘Come off it, Carson. I was injured during your harvest festival, by a falling display of tinned fruit cocktail and pineapple slices.’