Hole hearted Lucy Vickery In Competition No. 2506 you were

invited to submit a short story entitled 'A Life With a Hole In It'.

This is the title of a poem written by Philip Larkin in 1974, shortly after a move that plunged him into a black depression. It reeks of fury and disappointment: 'Life is an immobile, locked/ Three-handed struggle between/ Your wants, the world's for you, and (worse)/ The unbeatable slow machine/ That brings what you'll get. . .

The entry this week was impressive, which cheered me up after Larkin's doom and gloom. Top marks to you all for inventiveness, with special mentions to Bill Greenwell and Adrian Fry. The winners are printed below. They get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to Josephine Boyle.

I was made in an odd shape. To be accurate, I was cast in a strange mould. It is not every woman who has a perfect round hole in her torso, and yet Everywoman was the name I was given. Below my waist, and well below my hole, I was of massive, Miltonic proportions and sat comfortably upon my base in the Sculpture Park. I was very stable and much admired. Children would run around me and play. One afternoon, a child more adventurous and probably more athletic than his friends managed to climb my bronze back and thrust his head through my hole. His shoulders followed and I held him fast. I delighted in the unaccustomed contact with his warm and lively body. The more he wriggled, the more I enjoyed it. He began to cry with fear. But I can't feel pity; the hole is where my heart should be.

Josephine Boyle At 50 I'd finally made it after years of struggle. The proof was my appearance on the cover of Life magazine. For a Luce publication to showcase a non-figurative artist was something special.

I was glad for Myra, too. She could give up the waitressing job. And I could buy her some labour-saving devices — though she'd always been a workaholic, stretching my canvases as well as keeping house. I guess she enjoyed the reflected glory of serving a genius.

When the media besieged us Myra went all bashful and I had to handle them on my own. They wanted me posing with a copy of the mag. I'd left it upstairs, but when I called up to Myra to fetch it I got no response. And when I went to get it myself I found no Myra but Life with a hole where my face should have been.

G.M Davis Art and the Artichokes were helping to make a new culture in the Sixties. There was Ferdie, who went down now and again for possession, Mig, who stuck to pot and became a Cabinet minister, and me, Art the Voice, now your friendly bookie. Believe it or not, we topped the charts — only once — with 'There's a Hole in my Heart for You'. Remember? Probably not.

Only yesterday a punter looked at me and said, 'It's Art, isn't it?'

'Yes,' I said; 'remember "There's a hole. . . "?' Part of our culture now.

'I remember,' he said, and to my embarrassment broke into song: 'There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza...'

So don't talk to me about culture. I've met it. Paul Griffin One particularly cheerless day I tripped. I later woke and groggily looked round the hole in which I found myself. The bottom was a deep layer of English coins, on top of these the many bank notes, inches thick, which had featherbedded my fall.

Closer inspection revealed vast quantities of time, a photograph of a half-remembered woman of youthful looks and health, 30 points of IQ and memory in equal measure, the whole place lit with radiance and sparkle which revealed, however, one rueful, timid opportunity still cowering in a corner. All wasted. All lost.

I climbed out, made a makeshift lid and rammed it home.

Dorothy Pope Only at night did the sweets in the cornershop come alive and begin to engage in confectionerytalk. 'I'm bored,' sighed the wine gum, who never stopped moaning.

'You don't know what a hard life is,' snapped the rock, red with rage and annoyed with the wine gum's constant carping.

'Hard life? You should try mine!' sneered the acid drop, bitterly, prompting the gobstopper's usual response in the form of a request for everyone to 'shut it!'

Keen to inject a more positive note, the bull'seye spoke up. 'What each of you needs is something to aim for, a target in life.'

'That's all very well,' came a plaintive cry from under the counter. 'I've nothing to aim for. I go round in circles. Something is missing at the centre. One might describe it as having "a hole in one". Who'd be a Polo!'

Alan Millard Despite rumours to the contrary, my uncle Seamus did not die on the 16th green at O'Hogan's Country Club. Admittedly, he was playing the day before he died. But that was a short game at Lake Park Pitch & Putt, just nine holes, par 27. It's more challenging than you might think, with puddles almost everywhere — as the name suggests — and a tough sixth where you have to make a difficult decision between laying up for a good spot or letting it rip to give you a birdie chance over the sandpit where the kids play. No, my favourite uncle was not playing the Royal and Ancient Game when he keeled over. As his executor, I cannot tell you what he was doing when he expired. It's a biographical gap you must live with.

John O'Byme No. 2509: Past caring 'Nostalgia lit' is all the rage, so let's have an extract from a Victorian self-help book (150 words maximum). Entries to 'Competition 2509' by 23 August or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.