In Competition No. 2618 you were invited to submit a sequel to Betjeman’s ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’. As a native of the home counties — born in Aldershot, raised in Camberley — I have a soft spot for Betjeman’s muse, who imparted a touch of glamour to this unlovely part of the world. The real Joan Hunter Dunn, white-coated goddess of the catering dept ardently admired by Betjeman from afar at the Ministry of Information in the early 1940s, was tracked down by a journalist 20 years later. And her life was, it turns out, a continuation of the poem. There was euonymus in her garden in Headley, Hants, and Joan Jackson, as she rather prosaically became, was still nimble about the tennis court well into her forties.
Which was a far cry from the less than glorious future that you envisaged for her. A record-breaking entry painted an almost exclusively grim picture of lost youth, disappointed hopes and sun-damaged skin. The roll-call of unlucky losers is long this week: step forward, Martin Parker, G.M. Davis, Sylvia Fairley, Tim Raikes and David Silverman. They were narrowly pipped by the winners, below, who get £25 each. The bonus fiver belongs to Alan Millard.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
Amazed, how I gazed on the girl I had won,
My fearless fiancée, my volleying queen,
Parked here, in the Hillman, by Camberley Green.
But my heart gave a start when some fellow, alone,
Tapped twice on the window and said, ‘Is that Joan?’
‘Darling Denis!’ she cried. ‘What a super surprise!
It was Wimbledon, wasn’t it? My, how time flies!’
‘Game for a match?’ he said. ‘Last time I won.’
I prayed she would shun him, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
But she gladly agreed saying, ‘Meet you at three,
And after you’ve lost you can treat me to tea.’
It was tennis with Denis that captured her heart
And, alone in the car park, I watched her depart.
Then, turning to hockey, I spotted a star,
And now I’m engaged to Miss Claire Parker Farr.
Alan Millard
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
By now I had hoped that our two would be one,
That we’d partner in doubles, untroubled by doubt,
But her father has ruled that the service is out.
He stood in his study, his Enfield in hand,
And cancelled the match, and the banns, which
he banned.
The skirmish was won, but the battle unfought,
And now our engagement is ruled out of court.
Oh! adorable Joan, with the sweat on your brow,
And the forehand you served with the strength
of a plough,
In crepuscular dusk, I succumbed to your charms,
But must weep, unenfolded by muscular arms.
What power you showed me when making your pass,
But your father has ruled that I’m out of your class.
The racquet is packed, and the top-spin unspun,
And I’m posted to Africa, Joan Hunter Dunn.
Bill Greenwell
The wife’s off her head and I’m locked in the shed.
When she starts throwing plates I’d be better off
dead.
‘She’s got spirit, my boy,’ quipped her Dad with
a grin,
But neglected to tell me the spirit was gin.
Yes, the Army was fine till I stepped out of line.
What a mountain of grief in a bottle of wine!
‘A lark after dark in the Park with a cornet?
‘Great Heavens, Carruthers, that’s utterly torn it!’
So now I commute as a clerk in the City
Preparing reports for a finance committee,
A screw I suppose and I’m thankful for that,
But it isn’t enough for a wife and a brat.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
When we sowed our wild oats, I suppose it was fun,
But at Brighton Saint Peter’s I signed on the dotted,
Benighted, short-sighted, short-changed and
besotted.
John Whitworth
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How dearly we’ve paid for our moments of fun!
That figure gamine once so lissom and thin
Grows swollen and coarse with the fruit of our sin.
Our summer is gone with its bright tennis days,
And the branches are bare on those woodlanded
ways,
And our courting and sport in the Aldershot sun —
How they haunt us now, taunt us now, Joan
Hunter Dunn!
The best man is waiting, the speeches are planned,
And champagne and buffet set out at the Grand;
And the knot to be tied, and the vows to be said
In the ominous, ominous service ahead.
Our fault it was double: we both were to blame
When, recklessly feckless, to love was our game;
My tennis girl’s bound to the match that she’s won
And I must be wed to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
Penelope Mackie
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Cat on her lap and her hair in a bun,
The children of others in snaps on a shelf,
And a family group with her pigtailed young self.
In a glass-fronted cabinet cups are arrayed,
With cuttings and notes on the finals she played;
Her faithful old Slazenger, screwed in its press,
Lies flat in a drawer by a folded white dress.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
So many admirers but loved only one:
Let others embroider the facts of the story,
She wryly remembers the days of her glory.
Too late for regrets at the match she once lost,
To weigh in the balance the gain and the cost:
What’s shone through her life as the one steady
flame
Is nothing so much as the fame of her name.
W.J. Webster
No. 2621: Mixing It
You are invited to invent a magazine that is a cross between two existing publications (e.g., the Fortean Times meets Cranes Today or Noddy Magazine meets Saga) and provide an extract from it (150 words maximum). Entries to Competition 2621 by midday on 4 November or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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