Spectator competition winners: W.S. Gilbert’s guide to wedded bliss

In Competition No. 3208, you were invited to submit a recipe for marital bliss on behalf of an author of your choice.

Pausing only to give an honourable mention to Simon Hunter, I pass you over to this week’s terrific winners who each nab £25.

I am the very model of a guide to conjugality Advising every blushing bride to face up to reality. If you can follow my advice and act with due humility You’re guaranteed a life that’s spent in unalloyed tranquillity. While testing your endurance when he uses the ‘facilities’, The seat’s still raised, but don’t complain; it might invoke hostilities. Be sure he always has his way and don’t be argumentative, Massage his ego every day, you know he’s hyper sensitive. He’ll air his views on anything, both social and political, Regardless of the facts — but curb your instinct to be critical, The same with countless stories, told with numbing regularity, And well-worn jokes that must be met with resolute hilarity. And if, upon reflection, you can face with equanimity The chance of a supporting role with virtual anonymity And still comply with all the rules, responding with acuity, Your union’s blest for years and years and into perpetuity. Sylvia Fairley/W.S.Gilbert

You see, what you need, I mean, what a man and a woman need, well… there’s almost no telling, I can tell you. My Uncle Ned swore by a charabanc. Jasper, my boy, he said, he called me Jasper then, get yourselves down to Whitstable, he said, and have yourselves a winkle or two. Slice of lemon, smattering of salt, it’s a feast, what is it? Worcestershire sauce, a dab, maybe. Honeymoon all over again. (Pause.) I mean you can go about it other ways, Folkestone, Margate, even the Isle of Thanet. Every other week, he said, husband and wife, deep breath, salt air flaring your nostrils, a whiff of fish, what marriage wasn’t saved at the sea-side? I had a friend who was happily wed.