Poor relation

In Competition No 2480 you were invited to supply a song beginning, ‘Oh, what have you done to your ...?, the blank to be filled by a relative of your choice.

When you’re young, relatives — barring the family, of course — are automatically ridiculous. ‘Oh, Aunt Jemima, look at your Uncle Jim./ He’s in the duckpond learning how to swim./ First he does the breaststroke, then he does the side./ Now he’s under the water, swimming against the tide!’ I used to sing that giggling when I was a lad. Now I’m an ancient Uncle Jim, it’s less of a hoot. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to David Wood.

Oh, what have you done to your Uncle Sydney?

It’s years since we dined with the boring old sot:

He’d spots on his liver and only one kidney —

Now what did they call the disease that he got?

Ned said he saw him at Doncaster races —

Seemed sober, he said, though he tended to lurch,

And, of course, he then went and kicked over the traces

As he did when poor Agnes once dragged him to church.

Word was, entre nous, that he’d taken agin yer,

Intended to cut you clear out of his will,

Leave the whole shooting match to his niece in Virginia,

Or was it to Percy, who went to Brazil?

Rich as Croesus, of course, was old Sydney de Villier.

Say, isn’t that cane the one Sydney once twirled?

And those cufflinks you’re wearing look awfully familiar:

Good Lord, my dear boy, you’ve gone up in the world.

David Wood

Oh, what have you done to your Maiden Aunt Sue?

She’ll not be the same again.

She was wandering down to her outside loo

On a cold winter’s night in the rain;

Oh, how could you play such a childish prank?

It shook the poor dear to the core.

She was all on her own in the dark and the dank

With no inkling of what lay in store.

Oh, how could you do such a terrible thing?

Do you feel no remorse or regret?

I can still hear her screams as she suffered the sting

Of a sitting she’ll never forget.

Her horrified face turned as white as a sheet

In the wake of your fatuous folly.

Imagine her shock when, expecting a seat,

Aunt found herself sitting on holly!

Alan Millard

Oh, what have you done to your Uncle Bill?

You’ve pushed him off the window sill.

You may have had good cause, but still

It’s sheer defenestration.

Although he rubbed you on the raw,

It is a basic moral flaw

And technically against the law

To murder a relation.

It’s left your family quite perplexed

And asking, frankly, who’ll be next.

You are so ruthless when you’re vexed,

It beggars explanation.

I wonder if you’ll soap the stairs

To catch Aunt Hilda unawares.

I hear she’s rich in stocks and shares.

It’s worth consideration.

Basil Ransome-Davies

Oh, what have you done to your Cousin John

Who, in June two thousand and three,

Took nine for eight against Harrogate

And had the game won by tea?

The Yorkshire coach, he looked at John

And he didn’t like his style.

‘If you bowl like that, you ill-formed brat,

They’ll clout you for many a mile.’

The England coach, he shortened his run

And changed his grip on the ball.

‘Don’t aim at the wicket when playing Test cricket

Or you’ll never get better at all.’

You’ve tinkered so much with your Cousin John,

He can scarce keep the ball on track.

If you can’t leave alone what’s bred in the bone,

The Ashes will never come back.

Jim Davies

Oh, what have you done to my sister Myfanwy,

The doyenne of Denbighshire, Dame of Deganwy,

Crown Princess of Presteigne, la Belle Dame de Brecon,

The feistiest female in all Llanfairfechan?

You cruelly tricked her, most wilfully used her,

Baffled, bamboozled, nonplussed and confused her;

That girl was a oner, a lallapalooza

Until she met you, you poor sad English boozer!

Brim-full with spirit and high-octane hwyl,

Renowned and revered from Borth to Porthcawl,

She’d ride her chrome horse, a brand-new Gold Wing Honda,

Burn up the by-ways from Rhyl to the Rhondda;

Once ripped off the ears of an Angel named Spike,

Who was crazy enough to call Myf ‘Offa’s dyke’;

My sister was meant to stay gloriously single,

Not rot with you, boyo, in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll!

Mike Morrison

Oh, what have you done to your brother Jim?

I’ve searched all over the zoo for him.

Now it’s getting late and they have to shut;

And I’ve asked them at the Inquiries hut

If they’ve found a boy on a brand-new bike —

The brother I wish you’d try to like.

You said you’d be good while I went for a drink.

I know you were jealous, but try to think;

Did you leave him in the Safari Park,

With the poisonous spiders or great white shark,

The python, the crocs or the vampire bat,

The piranhas or the biggest cat?

Hang on! There’s a smile on that grizzly bear.

Is that what you did with my son and heir?

If so, you can sulk as much as you like

But you still won’t get to have his bike.

Martin Parker

No. 2483: Sorry, mate

It’s Berlusconi week. You are invited to supply a poem (maximum 16 lines) in which a husband or a wife apologises for a lifetime of misbehaviour. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2483’ by 22 February.