Summer Snaps

SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 397 Report by J. A. R. Pimlott

The usual prize of six guineas was offered for a snapshot in verse, not exceeding four lines, taken on Q sununer holiday.

Is it the ozone which accounts for the raciness (to say nothing of the corniness) of British humour about the seaside? Though respectably muted, the tradition of Rowlandson and the comic Postcard was amply sustained by competitors. Almost all the familiar themes recur—aunties and mothers-in-law, husbands and fathers with a roving eye for bathing belles in bikinis, what the butler saw, fat women, big feet, underclothes and buttocks. The humour has a touch of the macabre too: death stalked for mothers-in-law, parents and even in two instances for the poet. Sociologists may also care to note the maso- chism—or is it congenital optimism—which Prompts people to come back again and again for the annual ordeal. You would think they would learn from experience. After all, as Colin Prestige pointed out, the breadwinner has to work all the harder to pay for—what? Rain, even in Sunny Italy,' unbelievable discomfort (over- crowding on the trains, seasickness, congestion on the beaches, sand in the least agreeable places), rapacious landladies, squalling kids, predacious crabs and wasps and Portuguese men-of-war. . . . And when will foreigners learn to make a good cup of tea? No wonder some felt, as Ian M. Baker put it:

Wish I'd stayed at home. Here, more or less at random, are some charac- teristic glimpses: Queues, lollipops, litter, and rain. Susan was terribly sick in the train.

Boarding-house breakfast gave Billy a pain.

(MARGERY GREEN)

Cousin Mabel somewhat green.

(itosim M. WILLIAMSON)

We travelled nineteen to the carriage. (co.4) Amanda goggles with inane surprise;

And darling Deirdre's fled—she sat on ants. (huts. M. E. FOSSY)

beside the Leaning Tower . . . Auntie looks cross (because, you see, We couldn't get a cup of tea.

(CHRISTOPHER PLACE)

Belinda looking rather grim, And little Betty hitting Tim.

(EILEEN TULLOCH)

St. Mark's maybe—yes, those pigeons were

a menace. (E. C. JENKINS)

The day the wasp stung Grandad's nose And when the tide got all our clothes The time Ma slipped upon the butter. . . .

(JAMES FIDGEN)

P. J. Sidey summed it up in an entry which might have won a prize if it had not been impos- sible to regard it as a snapshot :

Oh, lovely, thanks! Except, of course,

That horsefly in Geneva, The sunstroke, migraine, seasickness, And touch of gastric fever.

But all was not gloom. There were happy episodes as well as grisly ones, sunny intervals in the rainstorms, architectural and scenic gems at home and abroad, romantic encounters leading— - if he has not indulged in poetic licence—one competitor actually to the altar. There is only space for a few snippets : A jewel-cottage on a green-gold shore.

(W. K. HOLMES)

Blue jersey, quiet bi:own hands that deftly weave On the grey stones of Ostend quay. . . .

(t. URSULA STEVENS)

The smell of thyme and seaweed in the soft

Welsh air. (MARION LEA)

Rough heady wine, clash castanets, and the tempting knee Of a dark-skinned rose-haired girl with parted

lips. . . . (MICHAEL O'CONNOR) I saw a MERMAID ON THE SHORE.

(H. A. STYLES)

But rich and free, so lovely that we gasped Lay Bournemouth's golden beach and emdrald

bay. (G. J. BLUNDELL)

How like Gregory Peck our guide is! (r. LEWIS)

I decided to construe the terms of the competi- tion fairly generously but I felt obliged, in con- sidering the awards, to insist on the entries record- ing the impressions—not necessarily visual—of a moment. That seems to me the essence of a snap- shot whether photographic or literary. And if the standard was very mixed, what does that matter? The record's the thing and the memory it recalls, even if the focus is blurred and the angle a bit askew.

Some of the best entries are published below. The prize of six guineas is divided among Hazel, Jocelyn C. Lea, G. R. Smith and J. Sweetman.

PRIZES (mum)

A toddler's foot is poised; A strange new world—the sea. Her doubt—her anguish, and Now—her ecstasy!

(JOCELYN C. LEA)

Let that jellyfish alone! Come down off that rock !

Do turn off that gramophone!

Oh, where is Baby's sock?

(G. R. SMITH)

Waving palms; Inward qualms; Costume brief; Tenerife.

(J. SWEETMAN)

The children frolic on the strand, With spade and bucket busy. —How quiet and good the darlings are! Oh look ! They've buried little Lizzie.

COMMENDED (J. A. LINDON)

This is the sand-castle that Father kicked over shouting because Bobby sauced him, which rather ruined our outing.

(J. E. CHERRY)

Mother? Lazing in a deck-chair just like a queen; On holiday we don't like her to do too much Except keep an eye on the towels, the flasks, the buckets and spades, beach-balls and bats, wet costumes, bathing hats, cigarettes, lighters, pennies for ices, papers we haven't seen, And such.

(JAMES G. LOGAN)

Grey rocks, off-silver sand, a flower-bright machair, Gay-jerseyed children in a mirrored yole, Trim, red-roofed crofts, and seamen at the derrick Unloading coal.