[John Whitworth]

Frank, that's tight, poised, everything we expect of you. Good luck with it.

[Martin Parker]

Marion, Bazza --- your comments much appreciated. I think this one is worth an airing somewhere. So, if La Belle Vickery doesn't like it I could always abuse my editorial privilege and put it in Lighten Up Online under my alter ego's name! Or maybe even persuade the publisher of my up-coming November booklet (HappenStance, the 2010 winner of the prestigious Michael Marks Award for poetry pamphlet publishing) to consider squeezing it in somewhere.

I would not want to have to judge this week's Comp. It is obviously going to have more winners than available space -- yet again.

[George Simmers]

Poor Grandmama was scrubbed and dressed
In her uncomfy Sunday best
And led to grim and stuffy church
Where on a chilly pew she'll perch
While a priest assails her ears
For hours that seem much more like years.
But that was Sunday, 1910,
And everything's improved since then.

These days the family spend all
Of every Sunday at the Mall
And if Jake has a family bag
Of crisps he won't moan it's a drag.
Bored desperation fills his eyes,
But if they stock him up with fries
His mum can find some bargain dresses.
And so the human race progresses.

[John Whitworth]

A winner, George. Grandmama? I was washed and scrubbed and sent to church. It was boring but not more boring than a lot of things a child has to do. You could treat the hymn numbers as cricket scores. That passed the time.

[Ann Drysdale]

George - may I suggest a quick tweak? There's a change of tense in the first stanza that sort of loses the contrast. What about "she'd" and "assailed"?

I can just see Jake, chain-guzzling crisps with his mouth open...

[George Simmers]

Ann - You're right, but it's gone in now. This one was a Wednesday morning job, and only just made the deadline.
John - I too suffered some long and incomprehensible church services, but not too many, since my mother had experienced worse when she was young (I was thinking of her when I wrote the first stanza) and sensibly moderated concern for my salvation with a consideration of my boredom threshhold.