Spectator competition winners: Ebenezer Scrooge asks for a loan

In Competition No. 3265, you were invited to submit a letter to a friend asking for a loan as it might have been written by a well-known character from the field of fact or fiction. John O’Byrne earns an honourable mention for his letter from Hamlet to Laertes. Equally impressive were Susan Firth, Mike Morrison, Ralph Bateman, J.C.H. Mounsey and John Megoran. But the cash prizes go to the winners, printed below, who pocket £25 each.

“When, in the course of domestic events, it becomes necessary for a man so to impose on the goodwill of his fellow creature, as to request of him pecuniary succour, assistance, and augmentation, it behoves him set out sufficient reasons for such trespass. Let these facts be submitted to a candid friend: 

      ‘The actions of a tyrant have stopped the arteries of trade by which my prosperity is nourished. 

      ‘The delay, neglect and deceit of builders has magnified fourfold the expense of furnishing my family with a fit and commodious dwelling. 

      ‘The multiplication of my dependants and chattels, springing solely from my concern for their wellbeing, has made the heaviest demands upon my purse. 

      I hold this truth to be self-evident, that he who has given greatest service, merits the greatest consideration, and await your most generous reply with expectation, confidence and gratitude. 

Frank Upton/Thomas Jefferson

“Dear Bob, 

Resist the inclination to cry ‘Humbug!’ when I tell you that, by keeping Christmas every day of the year this past decade, I have considerably overextended myself in what my unreformed self would have disparaged as ‘the charitable way’. That you continue the work with the open-handed merriment inspired by the blessed Spirits, I have concealed from you a second set of ledgers detailing the increasingly parlous state of the business. You have been remunerated well these past years – the Cratchit family flourishes, Master Timothy now sporting quite the paunch – so I am confident you will respond with an exuberant gesture of friendship and goodwill in capital form. You need not fear I will use the money in my old way, lending and investing at and for exorbitant interest. I intend distributing the money to beggars, my payment to be taken in their dear, toothless smiles. 

Adrian Fry/Ebenezer Scrooge

“My dear Lady Denham 

I implore your Ladyship, in all humility, to release me from my agony which, it seems, is interminable, not to say intolerable. Merely lend me the paltry sum of sixty thousand pounds and my troubles will cease. Afford me this loan and my debts will be cleared, the builders and tradesmen will be remunerated and Sanditon will be completed. At least Miss Austen abbreviated the pain after eleven chapters, for which mercy alone she is in my opinion deserving of her place on a ten pound note and for which relief I would owe her an eternal debt of gratitude. Mr Davies, however, compounds my agonies over at least three series, prolonging them like some nineteenth-century Love Island. I am, your Ladyship, in want of release from this purgatory, hence my earnest and humble request for your assistance. Your humble servant, 

David Silverman/Thomas Parker to Lady Denham

“Pursued by a band of fiends in human form who have dared to invade the sacred intimacies of my private life – in short, having suffered the removal of the bedroom furniture at the hands of the bailiffs’ men – and having no hope of a remittance from any member of my scurrilous malamute family – I turn with confidence of Copperfield the friend of my youth, certain that a trifling loan of five pounds will be immediately dispatched to lodgings under the arches, which will save my children from the ravages of want until something eligible in the way of employment turns up – which, I may say, I am hourly expecting; loan to be repaid with astonishing velocity once I am again in funds. Yours in extremis, Wilkins Micawber 

Gail White/Wilkins Micawber

“Good Peter Quince, thou and I have enjoyed ever the most obscene and courageous good fellowship, and I trust to make this a perfit plea to move my friend’s heart in my moment of sore embarrassment. The Duke’s munificence since our lofty tragedy and comedy triumph at his nuptial festivities doth renew itself at intervals, so even before I make my supplication, thou knowest well repayment is assured. It grieves me to confess that I have been most wickedly cozened. A rogue (God shield us!) hath practised knavishly upon me with representations that he could make me a shareholder in a new Athenian theatre company. His cruel fraud hath left me penniless and in need of some immediate small competence, which I will undertake to restitute as soon as may be. My weaver’s trade and player’s trade together must in time’s fullness restore a sweetness to our fortunes. 

Chris O’Carroll/Nick Bottom

“Dear Andy B. 

I had hoped that I might not have needed to write this letter, which is a disgrace: to you and not to me. 

      You have so much to offer, and I would have expected you to lend it before I asked! Really! I see so much brilliant money in your deep pockets, and I would like some. Of course I will return it. I will be lowering taxes so that I will have more to spend, and that way, I will soon have plenty with which to repay your loan. In the meantime I am crying out for your cash! 

      Let’s double down on the deal. When you let me have your cheque, I will ramp up what I want. A second cheque will follow! This. Will. Not. Be. A. Handout. I will however be reviewing your bank’s mandate. That’s what friends are for! 

M.E. Truss 

Bill Greenwell/Liz Truss to Andrew Bailey

No. 3268: blood and honey

News that a Winnie-the-Pooh horror flick, Blood and Honey, is in the pipeline prompts me to invite you to recast an extract from children’s literature (please specify) in the horror genre. Please email entries (150 words/16 lines) to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 21 September.