Spectator competition winners: If Alan Bennett had been a spy

In Competition No. 3247, you were asked to submit the reflections of a well-known writer on a career path they might have taken.

Most famous writers have had day jobs – Kurt Vonnegut sold Saabs, Harper Lee worked as an airline ticket agent, and Joseph Heller was a blacksmith’s apprentice.

But what about those missed vocations? Take a bow, Robert Frost, map-maker; Emily Dickinson, undertaker; Raymond Chandler, shrink. The winners earn £25.

I think I could have been a model censor of obscenity Admonishing the naughty and not ever granting lenity To crudity or nudity or any kind of rudery, Far bossier than Bowdler in my monumental prudery. How drastically I’d prune the books that might disturb or vex you all By dabbling in language that’s suggestive of the sexual, For such things could disturb you and you might well find it troubling If wickedness were hinted and entendres started doubling.   Then should I maybe exercise the censor’s own prerogative Of pondering naughty pictures with a gaze that’s interrogative, And if I kept a few that were delectably collectable, Well, who’d impugn the motives of a censor so respectable? George Simmers/W.S.