Schoolgirl Alicia Kendall wins the first Great Cheshire Story Prize
17:41, Oct 19 2010
by Jo Henwood, Chester Chronicle
A WORLD famous playwright popped in to a Cheshire school this week to present his first ever literary prize for children.
Tim Firth, whose play Calendar Girls has been performed all over the world, presented Alicia Kendall, of Wirral Grammar School, with first prize in the Great Cheshire Story Prize 2010.
Alicia, 11, was a pupil at Bishop Wilson Primary School in Burton when she entered the competition last summer.
Tim presented Alicia with a certificate and £100 worth of book tokens at a special assembly. She will also receive a cheque for £100 and her former primary school will enjoy £200 worth of book tokens.
Aimed at primary school children, the prize was launched in March to find budding writers of the future.
Tim provided the opening line of a story: “No one had any idea how that camping trip to Brackenmere Forest was going to turn out.”
Runners up were Zoe Baker, formerly of Bollinbrook Primary, Macclesfield, and Kate Mimnagh, from West Kirby Grammar School who was a pupil at Willaston CE Primary in South Wirral.
Students from the University of Chester’s Faculty of Education and Children’s Services helped Tim, an honorary graduate, whittle down the hundreds of entries .
He said: “I loved many things about entries in the final shortlist; the detail of an awning having the brand name of ‘Isabella’, reflections trapped forever in puddles, humans turning into trees, goblins created out of a mixture of coal and spices and stuffing notes about a school trip into the bin. Children were grounded by their mum, a character was tossed ‘like a rag doll in a baby’s malicious hands’ and clever kids discovered invading Germans in the Second World War.
“The eventual winner and runners-up showed a great deal of descriptive and narrative skill, and their stories in each case exhibited a really strong central idea. All in all, the breadth of storytelling skill made me feel very optimistic about the imagination of the next generation of Cheshire writers.”
Zoe and Kate will receive runners-up prizes of £50 and £50 worth of book tokens each, as well as book tokens worth £100 for their former schools.
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