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Thank you to all those who entered the competition-within-a-competition to ‘improve on Betjeman’. After much deliberation we have decided to award the prize to Jay from the Depp Effect. Her winning entry was:

Childhood is measured out by scrapes and sanctions, punishments and tears, before the day that parents dread, when role reversal clouds their ageing years.

Jay’s entry won because (a) it rhymes, indicating special effort; and (b) it is pleasingly bleak – much grimmer than Betjeman’s original in fact, which was ‘Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.’

Incongruously, Jay wins a copy of Stan Madeley’s hilarious book Second Class Male – available now from all good bookshops, some rubbish ones and of course Amazon.

Look out next week for another fabulous Slightly Foxed competition.