Spectator competition winners: Theresa May’s life in three limericks

Your latest challenge was to encapsulate the life story of a well-known person, living or dead, in three limericks. The limerick form was neatly summed up by the late Paul Griffin, long-time competitor and a regular winner on these pages:

A limerick’s short and it’s slick; Like a racehorse it has to be quick:       The front may seem calm       And cause no alarm But the end is the bit that can kick.

The saints and sinners whose lives you squished into 15 lines ranged from Donald Trump, Jim Davidson and Mad King Ludwig to Jesus and Helen Keller. Honourable mentions go to C. Paul Evans, Martin Elster, David Silverman and W.J. Webster; the winners, below, are rewarded with £25 apiece.

Basil Ransome-Davies The much-vilified Marquis de Sade Was a sport, an eccentric, a card.       From his earliest days       His were profligate ways And his future intentions ill-starred.

When the scandals occurred by the score Till his name was a word to abhor,       He was jailed without trial       As incurably vile On the word of his mother-in-law.

Though the fall of the monarchy freed him, The Bonaparte upstart decreed him       To be shut in the bin       For authorial sin, But thank goodness he’s here when you need him.

Brian Murdoch There once was a lady called May, Who thought, on the Brexit-poll day:       ‘Should Cameron lose       I’ll step into his shoes And get to be PM! Hooray!’

When she got the top job, our Theresa Thought she would become a crowd-pleaser,       But her much-proffered deal       Lacked all MP-appeal, And it soon got consigned to the freezer.

Out of Downing Street they had to tug her, But her husband came over to hug her.