In Competition No. 2536 you were invited to take an apparently unpromising holiday location, or a superficially unappealing activity holiday, and give it the hard sell in prose or verse form.
One of my favourite spots is Dungeness in Kent. A nuclear power station might not be everyone’s cup of tea but its brooding presence adds considerably to the haunting charm of this eerie wilderness.
I wasn’t convinced, though, by Sue Cain’s utilitarian case for a holiday spent cleaning her house: ‘…you can take all your newly learned skills back home and put them to good use’. Hmm. Nor Basil Ransome-Davies’s call to holidaymakers to turn their backs on the standard Parisian experience in favour of a ‘worm’s-eye view’ of the city’s seamy underbelly: ‘…body shops, petty crime and part-time prostitution’.
A commendation to Alanna Blake and to George Sparkes for his sales pitch for Hell, which was imaginatively presented. But the bonus five goes to Adrian Fry, who manages to imbue the army training ground of Imber with an edgy romance. The other winners, who each get £30, are printed below.
Set like a flawed gem amid the austere, epic beauty of Salisbury Plain, the village of Imber combines the battery-recharging quiet of a long depopulated hamlet with the battery-charging thrill of modern urban warfare. With its bombed cottages and lightning-damaged church, Imber’s picturesquely shell-striated ruins are an aesthetically invigorating monument to the generations of military heroes trained here, to which live ammunition and the possible presence of snipers add a piquant paranoia. Whether exploring the Hardyesque site of the former smithy or the hastily constructed hideaway rumoured to have been the work of Prince Harry, your senses will be treated to a range of refreshing new experiences, from the distant rumble of approaching tanks to the telltale glint of an ill-concealed landmine. Accommodation is spartan but plentiful and you’ll want to keep moving if you’re fully to explore Imber, the peaceful village where war never ends.
Adrian Fry
Do you hanker after the good old days? When everyone was friendly! When the government was on our side! And when you lived life to the fullest in the spirit of carpe diem! Why not spend a weekend in one of our select locations in Stepney or Plaistow, and enjoy the ultimate nostalgia holiday, the BLITZ EXPERIENCE. Guests are accommodated in an authentically cramped terraced house, cozily quartered six or seven to a room, with a healthy, slimming 1940s diet. Every night there is an amazingly realistic air-raid, when guests are herded outside to the corrugated iron shelter while small bombs are exploded above them for several hours. Enjoy the camaraderie, the singsongs and the complementary sweet tea or cocoa. For lady guests holidaying alone, optional add-ons include a fleeting but poignant affair with a Czech/Polish airman, or (supplementary charge) the US serviceman of your choice.
Brian Murdoch
Thanks to an influx of visitors in recent decades, the appeal of the Sea of Tranquillity (if only!) and its satellite regions is on the wane. Instead, today’s discerning holidaymaker takes one small step away from the lunacy of the beaten track and touches down on the Dark Side. The name is misleading — there is ample starlight to flick through a novel once one’s eyes adjust, and being hundreds of thousands of miles from even the most rudimentary life forms gives you the best chance you will ever have of finishing your holiday reading list! The oxygen-free atmosphere keeps hawkers to a minimum, while the locale’s gentle rotation ensures that you will not be reminded of workaday pressures by an unwelcome glimpse of your home planet. Those with young children will find the unique quiet particularly welcome — in space, you can’t hear anyone scream.
James Bench-Capon
Within easy reach of most British cities, Top Tip Safari Centres offer the adventurous tourist three holiday experiences in one, with a carbon print no larger than a little toe. Holidaymakers are housed in charmingly simple lodges bordering each centre, with privileged access to a major tipping operation. For the artistic, this is a veritable salon de refuse, a sort of constantly changing Turner Prize entry. Naturalists have the chance to observe a feeding area teeming with varied wildlife. Bird-watchers, for example, will see enough types of gull to give a twitcher St Vitus’ Dance. And for the amateur treasure-hunter there is an opportunity to sift through a storehouse of everyday artefacts which future archaeologists will be unearthing for centuries. Metal detectors are available on loan and one lucky find could pay for your whole trip. And for everyone there will be memorabilia we want you to take home with you.
W.J. Webster
When Gerry crossed the Mersey
It was thought, and often said
That he’d found his spiritual home
Right here in Birkenhead:
This playground of the woollybacks
On Wirral-next-the-Sea
Boasts a nineteenth-century lighthouse
And a fine Observatory.
You want to watch great footie? —
Get along to Prenton Park
Where the mighty Tranmere Rovers
Prove they never lost their spark.
Ask any proud Birkonian,
He’ll tell you: ‘It’s dead cool
And the best thing about Birkenhead —
It isn’t Liverpool!’
Mike Morrison
Competition No. 2539: Dear Mary
You are invited to submit a problem in verse form to The Spectator’s agony aunt (maximum 16 lines) in the style of the poet of your choice (please specify which poet you choose). Entries to ‘Competition 2539’ by 3 April or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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