The Sage Age

SPECTATOR COMP Report by The usual prize of six guineas was offered anthology, Now We Are Sixty-Six, on the

for contributions to a highly improl able lines of A A. Milne's Nov. We Are Six YOUNG Christopher reflects a child—wish- ful without envy, critical without spite, retrospective in thought but having no bitterness. Above all things, he is devoid of the sickly sentimentality attached to so many of the beastly infants of fiction. These, then, were to be the qualities against which I hoped to measure the entries for this competition.

Declining years, either real or imaginary, seem to have developed an underlying cynicism in many of your verses and, I suppose, this is not unnatural in this present-day world. One or two entries com- pletely dispelled my nostalgia but they defeated themselves; those of you that chose to rhyme 'Sixty-Six' with 'Styx' were among the first to fall by the way. I looked in vain for the other extreme—the philo- sophic parody that might have opened 'There's chorus girls at Victoria Palace.' No luck ! Surprisingly few of the entries were eliminated—not more than five exceeded the stipulated line limit and a couple that were way above my understanding. And, my friends, the spelling. . . .

Here are the highlights of the close runners-up: 'I'm as brisk as a bee,' said Miss Dorothy Duff, 'As brisk as a bee,' she repeated. 'It's only uphill that I pant and I puff, And get so deplorably heated.'

(IRENE POULTON.)

Grandpa stands at the foot of the stair, Stooping of shoulder and silver of hair; Clump! Clump I with rheumaticky tread, Grandpapa wearily climbs up to bed.

(P. Ni.) He guards me when I'm sleeping with his nose between his paws, He follows me from shop to shop with a paper in his jaws,

He never lets me bath him, and he's got a doggy smell,

But so have I, eh, Stinker? and we're keeping

pretty well. (1. A. LINDON.) I hope that the competitor concerned will not mind my making a special award of a couple of exclamation marks for the entry that starts:

One—two—three—bop

Down to the gin shop.

Three really outstanding entries from Gloria Prince, Christopher Place and R. Kennard Davis respectively, earn two guineas apiece.

PRIZES

(GLORIA PRINCE)

There's none but the pair of us now, says Prue, The kids are all gone, says she; Like newly-weds over again, she sighs, How I wish it were then, says she.

I wish it were too, says I to Prue, Well, it can't be helped, says she.

There's only us two, says I to Prue, There's none but we, says she. And what'll we do when one of us dies? Why, if one of us does, says she, I think I'll marry again, says Prue, Yes, that's what I'll do, says she.

(CHRISTOPHER PLACE)

City clerk, nice chap, fellow I was talking to, Presentation clock he got, labelled with his name.

Know how long he stuck it for? Fortnight. That's right. Couldn't stand the emptiness. back he came.

Now he's up there every day, just like he used to—

City pals is pals, like, there ain't no sham— Bert in the barber shop, lunch-time editions, Nice pint of old and mild and May at the Lamb.

City's sort of cozy, like, home is just a bed. City's where you'll find me, this chap said.

(R. KENNARD DAVIS)

At sixty-six I cannot do The things I did at twenty-two; But I've a secret friend inside me

Who still does all the things denied me.

He runs, he rows, he bats, he sings, He says the most outrageous things! He loves to dance, so light and lissom, And when the girls look sweet, to kiss 'enl,

And while he cuts his awful capers, I smoke my pipe and read my papers, And think how splendid it would be If he were 1, and I were he.