Spectator competition winners: Philip Larkin’s poems rewritten by other poets

In Competition No. 3266, you were invited to reimagine one of Philip Larkin’s poems in the style of a poet of your choice.

This challenge was a nod to the centenary last month of the poet’s birth, the response to which – though the Philip Larkin Society was upbeat: ‘so much is happening!’ – seemed somewhat muted. So the enthusiastic response to this invitation was heartening.

Congratulations and commiserations to unlucky losers Terry Parsons, Kit Wittering, Paul Freeman, Ann Drysdale, Atar Hadari and Joshua Kulseth. The winning entries earn their authors £30. Leading the way is Bill Greenwell’s John Betjeman, who described his friend Larkin as ‘tenderly observant’.

I am a busy ambulance. I scoot through midday traffic: Behind my quiet curtains, you may think the action’s graphic, But actually, old fruit, I am as private as the clergy, And one day I’ll be round to yours, my siren sounding dirge-y.   When I take in a patient, and no matter what locality, The watchers-on feel fragile and imagine their mortality: A scarlet blanket, double doors, the body stashed within, I scare the living daylights out of kith as well as kin.   It took ten generations and haphazard genes to make you? Inside my room for fifteen minutes, I could swiftly break you. Observe my high-speed journeys – all motorists must cower! – For Death, old bean, will see you off, no matter what the hour. Bill Greenwell/John Betjeman’s ‘Ambulances’

It’s no go the train ride for this flush of Whitsun weddings, And it’s no go this rush to town for their blushing, fumbled beddings. It’s no go the drink consumed and the organ’s last crescendo And the mothers’ hats and the uncle’s speech packed full of innuendo. And it’s no go the hullabaloo and all the lovey dovey, The nylon gloves, the dads in suits and the bridesmaids’ giggling covey. And