For Competition 3422 you were invited to submit a poem or passage on the theme of ‘daylight saving’. In a very good batch, once again the poetry bubbled to the top. There are too many close runners-up to name names, and it seems best to maximise space for winners. The £25 vouchers go to the following.
In honour of Surrey housebuilder William Willett, who first suggested it for the UK in a 1907 pamphlet
If you can lower fuel bills for the lowly
And make them use the sun for heat instead;
If you can make the cows chew cud more slowly
So milkmaids have an extra hour in bed;
If you can fool the public into thinking
They have more time to work and rest and play;
If inn-keepers can maximise our drinking
To keep the coopers loading up the dray;
If Germany’s saving more coal every minute
(Cassandras say they’re readying for War)
So our Parliament and all the feckless in it
At last see sense and turn it into law;
If you wrote it down and got it printed first:
‘The Waste of Daylight’ (or how to up your tan),
Yours, my son, is a plaque in Chislehurst
To William Willett: Daylight Saving Man.
Richard Warren
Dawn retards; the schoolboy shudders
Through the darkness, dreams he’s sleeping.
Cows are puzzled in their udders.
Starlings pause. Should they be cheeping? –
Falling back creates a myth
With thick consistency, like stodge –
What’s the time we travel with,
An inconsistent horologe?
Is it for our good, like honey,
Or a discipline, improving stricture –
Does it save us life? Or money?
Someone has the bigger picture.
As for me, I’m in the kitchen
In a state of helpless shock,
Texting those I hope will pitch in –
How d’you change the cooker’s clock?
Bill Greenwell
I thought it meant to keep light in a jar:
to save a little daylight here and there
from sunshine dappled on the forest floor,
to sneak away a ray or two of cheer.
I’ll skim a bit of shimmer off the sea,
for summer sun’s abundance will not miss
a soupçon of a sparkle stole away;
a little thievery of sunlight’s kiss.
Then, when the winter hustles in the dark
and night starts halfway through the afternoon,
I’ll hold up high the jar of light, and, oh! –
the shining gold will rush to fill the gloom!
Helen Baty
It is, our US friends would say,
Spring forward and fall back,
Almost a purposeful cliché
For defence and attack.
Indeed, there is a war of words
Among the naff who care.
To me it’s strictly for the birds,
A nugatory affair.
Britain had double summer time
During the war. So what?
Franklin’s involved, swear some, though I’m
With those who suspect not.
I feel no difference, none at all,
Between March and October,
The blooming springtime and the fall,
Since I am never sober.
Basil Ransome-Davies
In October, when clocks do their backwards thing,
Most of us get the point of what it’s for,
Accepting it without much grumbling –
But how to explain it to a labrador?
A labrador’s well-tuned internal clock
Is most exact at mealtimes. Half-past five,
His nose will thump your knee, to say: ‘Old Cock,
Have you remembered that I’m still alive,
And dogs need dinner?’ There is no use saying:
‘The BBC says it’s just half-past four.’
His deep brown eyes accuse you of betraying
The man/dog contract; silent, they implore
You never to forget dogs need their food,
Delivered with precise exactitude.
(But oddly enough, I’ve found that in the spring
He’ll accept an earlier meal, unquestioning.)
George Simmers
The clocks ‘go back’ and here’s the magic hour
at 2 a.m. when every screen resets –
one hour’s re-run, and Father Time has power
to wipe some sixty minutes of regrets.
Not what it’s for, of course. Our small hours’ ache
for all the good not done is nothing more
than poet’s whimsy. Sixty minutes make
another desperate must-do household chore.
The grandfather, wound once a week, can’t move
its hands all by itself, ditto those clocks,
relics of times stuck in the wind-up groove,
that meant our hours and minutes were approx
and set by hand. Get the stepladder out.
Dust down the wall clock: check you’ve set the chime.
Don’t dwell on philosophic whys, or doubt
these reasons for conforming: just keep time.
D.A. Prince
Gather ye daylight while ye may,
Adjust the clocks to save it,
Despite cross cows and jet-lag yawns,
We prize, protect and crave it.
With longer light from heaven’s lamp
More exercise we’re getting,
Conserving energy, spending cash,
More fun, more tans, more sweating.
No longer fear the heat of the sun,
As precious rays we stymie,
Our hours are stretched like Doctor Who’s,
Spaced out and timey-wimey –
The zones don’t match, our rhythm’s lost,
Then winter chills come creeping,
Change back the clocks, and seize the day,
Rugged up and mostly sleeping.
Janine Beacham
No. 3425: A letter from Jane
It has been suggested that Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra saved the novelist’s reputation by burning most of her letters. You are invited to ‘find’ one that escaped the bonfire (150 words maximum). Please email entries to competition@spectator.co.uk by 5 November.
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