Spectator competition winners: ‘I met a traveller from an antique land’ – poems about passports

The latest challenge was to provide a poem about passports. While the news that British passports issued after October of next year will be navy blue rather than burgundy was heartily cheered in some quarters, others — like Nicola Sturgeon, who denounced it as ‘insular nonsense’ — weren’t so delighted. And others still wondered what all the fuss was about. The full spectrum of opinion was reflected in a small but punchy entry, and in the winning line-up. Commendations go to David Silverman’s ‘Jerusalem’-inspired verse, and to Frank Upton, Sylvia Fairley and Fiona Pitt-Kethley, who also shone. The winners printed below are rewarded with £25. Basil Ransome-Davies pockets the extra fiver.

Basil Ransome-Davies I got my first at age eleven, A ticket to another land Guaranteed by Ernest Bevin. It felt like freedom in my hand.

I saw the Rhineland’s saddened state Six years after the war we won; My passport meant I couldn’t hate The fallen enemy, the Hun.

A dynasty of documents In midnight blue (or black) unbent Any contorted inference That Englishness was heaven-sent.

My present one is burgundy.