In Competition No. 3269, you were invited to write a poem about Her late Majesty’s favourite things.

Alongside the more familiar royal predilections – corgis, horses, Dubonnet and gin, Corrie, the colour blue – was the revelation that the Queen was partial to a spot of heavy metal, and in particular Ozzy Osborne, though perhaps that was just a flight of fancy. Most competitors went the Rodgers & Hammerstein route, but despite some inevitable repetition, it was an instructive and entertaining postbag. An honourable mention goes to Roger Dickinson, Brian Murdoch and Janine Beacham; the winners, printed below, receive £30 each.

There’s an unassuming vault where they keep her Maldon salt
with the real Koh-i-Noor, in Tupperware;
and the banks of frazzled wires lead to ranks of two-bar fires
all directed at an empty tartan chair.

Her pen-and-paper games hide the works of P.D. James
and a notebook of Prince Philip’s greatest jokes.
The skeleton, of course, is Dunfermline, the horse
Willie Carson rode to victory in the Oaks.

A size-four wooden last on which all her shoes were cast
bears her warrant to Anello & Davide.
By the Hardy Amies suits stands a pair of Hunter boots,
her Barbour and some well-worn Harris tweed.

But the thing that holds us now is a copy of the vow
that she folded in her heart at twenty-one.
In the end her life was long with a constitution strong,
and she kept it till the day the job was done.
Nick MacKinnon

O I am frugal, regal
And when there’s nothing doing
I love to google ‘beagle’
For dog facts worth pursuing

What portraits I love viewing!
A Beaton! Annigoni!
I think it well worth queuing
For Lichfield, even Tony –

I might mimic Berlusconi
Until Philip blows a gasket
And I like to meet a pony
Or to spend the day at Ascot

Let me taste a chocolate biscuit
With Mirren or with Neagle!
Let me pack a picnic basket!
Let me spy a White-tailed Eagle!
Bill Greenwell

What is this life if, full of care,
We find we have no time to share

The pleasures that we know have been
Endorsed by our departed Queen?

No time to follow her advice,
To drink Dubonnet, gin and ice

And chocolate cake that chef McGrady
Served up for the royal lady.

No time for training well-bred horses,
Champions on prestigious courses:

Scarlet, purple, edged with gold:
The winning colours, put on hold.

No chance to see, in palace grounds,
Cavorting corgis, hear the sounds

Of racing pigeons in the air –
For now we only stand and stare.
Sylvia Fairley

Walkies with corgis and watching the gee-gees,
Laurel and Hardy, George Formby, the Bee Gees,
(Fine – not the Bee Gees) – when Vera Lynn sings:
These are a few of one’s favourite things.

Picnics and barbecues out in the heather,
Balmoral bashes, whatever the weather,
Giddy Gay Gordons and wild Highland Flings:
These are some more of one’s favourite things.

Jam from the Sandringham WI;
Time with one’s family. Heaven knows why.
Wellies and headscarves, rather than bling –
Because one needs more than one favourite thing.

When they loaf on Oprah’s sofa,
Dissing kith and kin,
One simply remembers one’s favourite things
And takes it all on the chin.
David Silverman

A Corgi beside one, a biddable mascot,
Carriage processions, the first day of Ascot,
High-stepping thoroughbreds ranged out in strings:
These were a few of her favourite things.

Winter retreats, the huge Norfolk sky’s awning,
Walking to church on a crisp Christmas morning,
Servants propelling great-grandkids on swings: These were a few of her favourite things.

Skydiving out of planes into packed stadia,
Watching ursine tea guests get marmaladier,
Solving jigsaws, sorting clouds from birds’ wings:
These were a few of her favourite things.

Sipping a gin on the deck of Britannia,
Bidding all formality do svidaniya,
Far from all presidents, princelings and kings: These were a few of her favourite things.
David Shields

No. 3272: dear diary

You are invited to imagine a well-known diarist, real or fictitious but please specify, commenting on contemporary events. Please email entries of up to 150 words to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 19 October.