COMPETITION

Travels with my aunt

Jaspistos

IN COMPETITION NO. 1778 you were invited to describe, in the person of a well-known P. G. Wodehouse character, part of a tricky journey taken with an aunt.

A delightful coincidence illuminates the results this week. The winner of the first bonus bottle of Drummond's Pure Malt Scotch whisky, Ross Wallace, is peculiarly appropriate. Unswayed though I usually am by extra remarks from competitors, I was touched by his separate note: 'Gently pertinent information: P. G. Wodehouse is in fact my great-uncle. It took me a long time to become a fan of P. G.'

It took me a long time, too. Reading Hot Water, though, on my last holiday, I was completely won over by the old plotwright and wordsmith. As for aunts, at which he excelled, who on earth was the unfortunate original Aunt Sally? Belloc, we know, claimed to have an aunt in Yucatan, and Lear's Aunt Jobiska owned a `Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers'. Greene's aunt did travel, but Archbishop Temple's merely almost did, as he reveals: 'My aunt was suddenly prevented from going a voyage in a ship that went down — would you call that a case of Providential interfer- ence?' Answers on only one side of the paper, please.

The prize-winners, printed below, re- ceive £20 each.

`Augustus, if you must fidget you could have done so before boarding the train.'

This was scarcely fair of Aunt Evalina. Gussie was, of course, fidgeting, but it was in the manner of a man who had every right to do so. The bead of perspiration upon his sweated brow had every right to be there as well. He was recalling the occasion when his aunt had disagreed with his method of preparing her Persian Blue for the summer's heat.

Even now, drops of algae-rich pond water were swelling menacingly on the luggage netting above her. He could see now that it had been lunacy. Fontbury Magna and Caistor Street were separated by some one hundred and fifty miles. What had possessed him to assume that he could keep a large jar of village newts upright amongst his baggage?

(Ross Wallace)

It was my allusion to the poet Drayton's 'Fait stood the wind for France' which caused Aunt Maud to inquire our destination. Unfortunately, believing this to be Dover, not Deauville, she had misdirected her luggage and now found herself with only her nightdress and without the laissez-passer of His Britannic Majesty. I avoided any contretemps over the former by explaining that such attire was now considered haute couture in London and, finding our Gallic; cousins somewhat susceptible to flattery, I ensured our entry into the country through some remarks about the superiority of the cooking 01 the passport controller's mother. My aunt's

insistence, notwithstanding my appeal to the works of Dr Einstein, that if it was midday in Clapham it must be midday in Dieppe, made us miss one train, and then my own refusal to break into an unseemly jog made us miss another. Deauville itself, however, proved satisfactory.

(Nicholas Hodgson)

I had omitted to note that the Leamington train halted at Market Blandings. Aunt Euphemia stepped resolutely out.

'Now I shall see the Empress,' she declared.

I followed, cursing my unwariness. For the Castle butler to enter the domain in holiday tweeds was unthinkable. Desperately I sought some distraction.

'Do you see, Aunt,' I ventured, 'the floral feast offered by our worthy station-master?'

Her eyes narrowed censoriously. Then, taking her nail-scissors, she began dead-heading lobelia. I experienced a glimmering hope.

'The display has,' I said, with feigned re- proach, 'elicited numerous accolades.'

'Which merely illustrates,' she snapped, turn- ing her attention to the alyssum, 'the prevalence of declining standards.'

Soon another train arrived. The rest was elementary. `The Empress,' I murmured, 'awaits us.'

She snorted. 'Meaning, no doubt, that you wish to fuddle yourself surreptitiously in your pantry. In with you, Sebastian! Facing the engine.' Suddenly even spa hotel port appeared alluring.

(Chris Tingley) The bunker on the fifteenth at Royal Birkdale is frightful enough, but the sand dunes between Chinguctti and Tombouctou take the absolute Bath Oliver. As for the camels, if I say that mine made Sir Roderick Glossop seem full of the milk of human whatsit, you'll get the picture. Fortu- nately, Aunt Elfrida fixed it with the look she reserves for charging rhinos.

Did I mention Sheikh Abu Haifa? A fierce- looking johnny with a moustache you'd need a five-iron to hack out of. He invited us to a ghastly dinner of boiled mutton and coffee the Borgias would have been proud of. While I was palming the sheeWs eyes I'd been offered as dessert, he muttered something and I nodded. It turned out I'd traded Auntie for six camels and a part-share in an oasis.

On these occasions one simply has to stiffen the upper lip. I'm sure they'll be very happy. (Watson Weeks) I lugged Aunt Drusilla on to the beastly aero- plane and she began to bellow about sitting with her back to the engine. For the umpteenth time I wished Jeeves was with me.

`Bertier she said in her whiplash voice. 'Tell the staff to switch off those two big fans at the front. They are causing a draught.' The stewar- dess, rather a pretty girl, held up a brightly coloured thingamyjig and told us how to put it on if we sloshed down in the silver sea. 'I refuse to wear such a garment! When Pater was governor of the Greater Fetor Islands that bilious yellow was the colour of death. But where is my parachute? I wish to speak to the driver person immediately!' Aunt Drusilla's red eyes flashed.

The old persp. was beginning to bedew my brow. Bertram was up against it.

(Michael Burt)

No. 1781: Chesterbelloc

You are invited to write a 20-line ballade (two octets and a four-line envoy) with the title 'Nostalgia'. Entries to 'Competition No. 1781' by Thursday, 27 May.