Competitors were asked for a sequel to Gavin Ewart’s famous 1937 quatrain concerning Miss Twye.
(Miss Twye was soaping her breasts in her bath
When she heard behind her a meaning laugh
And to her amazement she discovered
A wicked man in the bathroom cupboard.)
An enjoyable entry, her predicament producing some spirited responses, but in only one of them was the laugh on the feisty singleton. Instead, taking control of the situation, either explosively or exploitatively, she proved herself a liberated lady avant la lettre, although D.A. Prince provided a hint of a conventional Mills and Boon ending and Mae Scanlan went even further.
Katie Mallett’s OAP had been to judo classes “and learnt the twists and turns and passes” with fatal results for the man, while Daniel Galef’s intruder had his mind set on soap, not seduction. (“ But I only had eyes for the soap, you know/I was looking at her Pears.”)
With commiserations to them, and congratulations to the others, here, in no particular order, are the offerings that most tickled the judge’s fancy.
Miss Twye, the lonely bosom-sponger
Faced by a strange man’s mini-plunger,
Exclaimed, “Why am I plagued by creeps
Not up to more than furtive peeps?”
The plumber said, with great aplomb,
“Although to some I’m Piping Tom,
The proper term’s what I prefer−
The word you’re seeking is voyeur.”
She did not faint, or try to flee,
Or simper, “That sounds French to me!’
But snarled, “I hate pedantic phoneys!”
And kneed him in the . . . (Yes, c*j*n*s.)
I. V. Neversere
He wiggled his eyebrows and twirled his moustache;
His voice, when he uttered, was croaky and harsh:
“Thank God! I’ve been stuck in this cupboard all week –
I came when your neighbours complained of a leak.”
Oh, what an embarrassing plight was Miss Twye’s!
She reached for a towel; he covered his eyes.
She put on her bathrobe, no longer in fear.
“Perhaps I could give you some tea, since you’re here?”
“That’s kind of you, Miss, I could drink a whole lake.”
She brought in the tea, and a sizeable cake.
He wolfed it. The reason was not far to seek:
He’d had nothing to eat or to drink for a week.
She looked the chap over. What muscular knees!
Her taste for rough trade made him certain to please.
“Well, I’d better be going . . .”, he started to say,
But she pounced on the fellow. Miss Twye had her way.
Brian Allgar
His lascivious leer and long lusty growl
Alerted Miss Twye to reach for her towel
And shield lathered charms from his lecherous eyes
While rending the air with some hair-raising cries.
But, undaunted, this damsel then dealt with distress
With a flick of her flannel and a lick of finesse.
Right under the nose of the prurient brute
She rinsed scented suds from her slick birthday suit.
Now, gleamingly clean, with her rep to uphold,
Twye can’t deny that her next step was bold.
She leapt from the tub with a wink and a whoop
And lured the voyeur from his ogler’s coop.
The clod in the closet was there to repair
A flaw in her flush; he was not paid to stare!
So . . . she seized on his wrench with an ear-splitting yell
And fixed the rude rogue and the ballcock as well!
Susan Jarvis
She dropped both her soap and her sponge with a splash
And hoped he wasn't in search of her cash.
“You are . . .”, she croaked, spluttered, and started again,
“. . . intruding. Unwanted. Come out and explain.”
He climbed out, dislodging a stack of clean towels
And started to speak (the most cut-glass of vowels).
“Forgive me. I needed a bed for the night.
Your plumber implied this would be quite all right.”
“All right!” Miss Twye gasped, eyes popping, face puced.
“It's certainly not. We've not been introduced.”
“My humble apologies: Lord St-John Skyve
de Coverley Fauntleroy Washington Ffyve.”
Miss Twye re-considered. Her bath, growing cold,
Reminded her sadly she'd soon become old.
She nodded her head. “Miss Twye” (emphasised Miss)
Thinking, “Go for it, gal! There's a future in this.”
D.A. Prince
Why was the wicked man’s first urge to laugh
Faced by her nakedness there in the bath?
Why should her soaping be thought so amusing?
Miss Twye found his attitude rather confusing.
“Why do you laugh? Do you not feel a fire
Burn in your loins fuelled by lust and desire
To see my firm flesh with its all-over tan?”
“Not really,” he said, “because I’m a blind man.”
He couldn’t see? All at once she felt free,
Dancing around him, provocatively,
Till he murmured, “Nice tits! Now, if you don’t mind,
It’s high time I got on with fixing the blind.”
Susanna Clayson
Certain her bubbles deserved more respect
(a touch of the forelock the least she'd expect)
she snapped, stung by his laugh into one of her rages,
“So it’s perverts, not plumbers, my landlord engages!”
She'd make him learn she was no serving wench,
coming in here with his mighty tap wrench.
Grasping her dead Daddy's bone-handled razor,
displaying sang-froid as if nothing could faze her,
she sprang on the upstart, and with no compunction
imparted a lifelong erectile dysfunction.
Geoff Lander
She let out a scream, but she had the smarts
To quick grab a towel and cover her parts.
“Get out”, she yelled, “or I'll call the police!”
“ I am the police,” he said, eyebrows a-crease,
“But I haven't popped by to rape or to pillage;
We're having a fundraiser down in the village.
I'm making some calls. The message I bring?
We want all the people round here at the thing.
I hope you will be there.” The cop took his leave,
And what then transpired is hard to believe:
Miss Twye left her bathtub; she hastily dressed,
And went to the fundraiser. As you have guessed,
She saw the policeman, and he saw Miss Twye,
And they hit it off in the blink of an eye.
Cupid was watching, 'midst flirting and laughter;
They married in April, and lived ever after.
Mae Scanlan
