Comps. of Yore
 

A friend of my grandparents who now often writes for the Oldie used to enter (and win) New Statesman comps. many (though I'm not sure how many) years ago. Apparently he was invited back then to a party given by the magazine for regular winners, who were to turn up wearing their pseudonyms on name badges.

Does anybody remember one of these events?

I've never heard of such a thing, though I have read that compilations of winning entries were once published in book form. I'd find it a little disconcerting to meet fellow winners in the flesh. I wish to maintain my private illusions: in my mind alone, Bazza has a ginger beard and wears a deerstalker hat, John Whitworth is a Norfolk farmer and David Silverman is a slickly suited City type.

Thanks Adrian, that's interesting. I agree with you about David Silverman, but I've always thought Bazza would look a bit like Dr. Busby and John would wear an outlandishly broad Tudor ruff. Frank McDonald has wild ginger hair, a tonsure and horn-rimmed spectacles, Brian Allgar sports a brown check suit and has a permanently raised left eyebrow. W.J. Webster, for some bizarre reason, has sometimes got an elephant's trunk and ears. You wear a Panama hat and carry opera-glasses.

I think I'd probably continue to maintain these hallucinations even if I were to meet the hallucinees.

Nicholas, you are right: I wear Panama hat and opera glasses. Even in the bath.

Oh, and John O'Byrne is a racehorse trainer in oatmeal tweeds whose speech is incomprehensible but mellifluous.

How on earth did you know W J Webster was an elephant? Years ago I found a Speccie in a doctor's surgery and in it he/she'd won a competition with a poem that began "I wish I were an elephant". I head-hoarded it and taught it to my children...

Adrian,
I've now met SO many Spherians (''fellow winners'') I've lost count, and every experience has been marvellous. We are a great bunch of people! :D

Only last week I nipped onto a Eurostar train to Paris, from St Pancras, to see Brian Allgar and his lovely wife Françoise. We had a wonderful time together: great food and drink, great conversation. What more could anyone want?

You should try it, Adrian. Every summer we have a lunchtime gathering of Eratosphere poets from both sides of 'The Pond', and other countries too, usually in Cambridge, Oxford or London. Firm friendships are forged, and I highly recommend attending such an event. Don't hide yourself away. I, for one, would be absolutely delighted to meet you !

Jayne

PS. You could forget all those perceptions of what people look like and see them for real (there aren't any 'warts and all' really, you know! ;))

From my Norfolk cabbage patch I stumped back here to tell you the volumes are 'An Owl in a Sack Troubles No Man' published by The New Statesman, and 'Peacocks and Commas' edied by the divine Joanna Lumley published by the Bodley Head. Very entertaining both of them. Get them now if you can.

You can find out what I look like quite easily, Chris and and Bazza too. I have met Jayne, Bill Greenwell. Alanna Blake and the incredibly spry Martin Parker. Handsome and beautiful people, all of us.

Maud Gracechurch, a golden oldie, was a boat.

Not forgetting this, from 1979 (Allen & Unwin):

The problem is, I don't want everyone to know I have web feet and two heads. (I hail from Suffolk, you see...)

Lucky you're not from Norfolk, Sylvia. You would have at least three heads, and you'd have to share the feet with your cousins.

"Nipped onto a Eurostar." Blimey. I just blued my monthly travel budget on a trip to Cheltenham!

Further to Basil's Porcupineand the other two collections I vaguely remember an NS comp collection called Salome dear, not in the fridge. Can anyone confirm?

I don't know about that one, Jerome, but I've got the ones John mentioned, An Owl in a Sack Troubles No Man, and Peacocks and Commas, both of which I treasure!

...And now, thanks to Bazza, I've just whizzed over to Amazon and bought a copy of Never Rub Bottoms With a Porcupine, to add to the collection.

Jayne

PS. Just whizzed back again to Amazon and yep, Salome, dear... is now on its way to me too. There are lots of copies available if you want one, for 1p plus £2.80 postage. Well worth it!

Thanks, Jayne. Will have a look.

A resounding harrumph, Brian, harrumph - we may be webbed of hand and foot in Norfolk, but the special gloves and shoes go a long way to help us appear safely in public. Lucky Jayne for actually getting to eat with you.(Are you still banned?)

E.O. Parrott edited a collection of parodies, pastiches, and the like called How to Be Well-Versed in Poetry. My copy is packed away out of reach, so I can't confirm this at the moment, but the internet tells me its poems were culled from Spectator entries, and memory tells me it was one of a series of such books.

Yes, it was one of a series, Xmas time & bog bookshelf stuff, levity the keynote. Eric circulated regular comp winners for contributions, & paid out quite satisfyingly. He did not have the most sophisticated taste in humour, & I remember being asked for smutty limericks for one collection. I obliged, of course.

I have this volume. Very good on verse forms. A Grammar school boy, like thee and me, Bazza. Though mine was Scotch of course.

This was the 50s/ early 60s NS comp anthology. There was also one called Salome Dear Not In The Porcupine, which was a pick of two volumes.

There are also three earlier competition anthologies:

New Statesman Competitions ed GF Stonier (1946)
New Statesman Competitions (original thinking!) ed Arthur Marshall (1955)
and also - from the start of the competitions in The Week-end Review -

The Week-end Calendar ed Gerald Barry (1932) - originally intended to be just competitions, but changed to include W-eR articles from 1930-1932 as well

At the time of writing you can see the first 240 or so comps on my OU research website, https://nscompsandpoets.wordpress.com/ - it's a bit raggedy but the material is there along with some solecisms and typos, for which apologies.

Bill

Thanks for posting this information about the earlier anthologies, Bill. Something to look out for in any surviving second hand bookshops.

There are two copies each of Stonier and Marshall on eBay as we "speak". One of the former, in "acceptable" condition, is to be had for £1.25.