Martin, I think the Miniver reference must be to Miniver Cheevy in the poem of the same name by Edward Arlington Robinson? Admittedly, it took some time for this to come back to me. I would imagine that interested Oldie readers of a certain vintage wiould have encountered him, as I did, in Geoffrey Moore's 1954 anthology The Penguin Book of Modern American Verse. It was the 1959 reprint that came my way,with poets ranging from Emily Dickinson to W.S. Merwin, though I must say that Peter Viereck's To A Sinister Potato ('O vast earth-apple waiting to be fried') made more of an impact than Miniver at the time.
Otherwise, the connotations of 'Miniver' are to some early 1940s film possibly called Mrs Miniver's Diary.
However, even if readers didn't know the EAR source, the 'like Miniver' wording would probably only cause a passing flicker of incomprehension, as the rest of the line explains itself.
If the bout rimes challenge excites as much interest generally as it has in Eratosphere, the half dozen who get a prize from this one are going to have earned it!
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