In Competition No. 2995 you were invited to submit ribald limericks as they might have been written by a well-known poet.
William Baring-Gould, who wrote a history of the genre, noted that when a limerick appears, sex is not far behind And the writer Norman Douglas considered limericks to be ‘jovial things… a yea-saying to life in a world that has grown grey’.
The cheering winners of what was a hugely popular comp are rewarded with £8 each.
Though most of my loves are Platonicer,
It was always quite different with Monica.
If I’ve got a hard ’un
Down there in the garden,
We do it behind the Japonica.
John Whitworth/Philip Larkin
Although candy is dandy, what’s finer
And much quicker is liquor, so wine her.
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