Dr Simon reads... BBC 500 Words (2012 Winners) - Children's Writing Contest

Dr Simon Reads… 500 Words (2012 Winners)

We now get to 2012, the second year of the competition and the first year that Gold, Silver and Bronze winners are announced rather than one overall winner in each age category. Because, I guess, the competition was still young and the BBC underestimated its enduring popularity, there are no recordings on the website from the celebrity readings at the final. I heard a couple of them on the day, but not all, so I don’t know, apart from one, who read them; you will have to make do with the BBC Drama Company readings instead.

For more information on the 500 Words competition see my post on the 2017 awards; but in brief it’s a creative writing competition run by the BBC for children aged 5-13, who can any kind of story they like, as long as it is within 500 words. Three winners from each of the two age categories (5-9 and 10-13) get their stories read out by a famous actor in a live final, plus win a big stack of books. Since its inception in 2011 it’s grown massively with tens of thousands of entries each year.

In each of these ruminations I look at the winning stories, and the celebrity reading, but I encourage you to also check out the other 44 finalists for each year; the writing on display is often breath-takingly good.( http://bbc.in/2pWJLrW).

If Only I Could Switch My Mum Off by Eloise Schaw Miller

Bronze Winner 2012 Age 9 and under
“I went back down to the sitting room to check on Mum. She still had that grin on her face but her eyes looked even angrier. She looked like twins in different moods but in one person. She was still on Pause , but I was worried if I pressed Play she would come back to her normal self, but much angrier.”

The narrator of this story is a young girl who wants to finish watching the last 10 minutes of a TV programme but is being harassed by her mother to do her homework instead. The girl uses the TV remote, and manages to pause her mother. With the mother paused, but evidently still aware of all that’s going on, the girl takes the opportunity to eat chocolate, play with her mothers make-up and otherwise conduct various forbidden activities. In the end she ponders what would happen if she pressed “off” on the remote but decides that, regardless of telling-off, she’d miss all the good things that her mother does, and so presses Play again to face the music…

It’s a sweet little story about the often fractious relationship between mother and daughter – I think I’ve seen a similar idea before, but this one is well-executed with some lovely turns of phrase (I like the bit about twins in one person in the quote above).

Me and You by Poppy Holloway

Bronze Winner Age 10-13
“I'm on the beach with you now, we are sat in the café. I've brought you a hot chocolate. I lift the cup to your lip, you sip it then you dribble a bit. I put the cup down and mop your face. You smile at me. I take you for a walk, I talk to you softly, you listen carefully you have all ways been a great listener.”

We get a very different take on a mother-daughter relationship with Poppy’s story. With a sophisticated structure that alternates between present and past, we see the narrator as she takes her disabled mother out for the day, and we learn of the day when she learned that her mother had been in an accident and suffered brain damage. There is great honesty in how the daughter feels what it is like to love someone unable to return that love, of her need for the friendship of the carer, and also of how her own caring is unconditional, but not without a mix of guilt and anger.

It’s another of those 500 Words deeply touching and poignant tales, told with a great maturity and emotional depth. I kind of hope that it’s not autobiographical, because it’s very sad.

Cow on a Bus by Guy Rose

Silver Winner Age 9 and under
“One sunny day, by accident, the farmer left the gate open and at the same time as usual, the bus came along. She thought to herself: this is my chance. I can finally find out where this bus goes every day. She stuck out her hoof. The bus stopped, the doors opened and she hopped on.”

Guy is the sole boy in the winners this year, and in line with my general assessment, his is a comic tale of whimsy. This was the one that I remember being read out, by Richard Wilson (Victor Meldrew from One Foot in the Grave). And it does what it says on the tin. A curious cow, keen to explore the world beyond her field, decides to catch the bus. What makes the story work really well as a piece of surreal comedy is that no-one seems to find this odd. The bus stops for her, and although she barely fits in the seats, the other passengers make no comment.

The cow’s first journey takes her round in a circle because the bus is new to her, but she does it again and takes a trip to first the school playground and then the seaside, coming home in time for milking wearing a Kiss-Me-Quick hat. Unfortunately, because “you know what terrible gossips cows can be” eventually all her friends in the milking shed want to try, but the bus driver draws the line at giving a lift to forty cows waiting by the side of road.

Some really fun imagery in this story, I could see it as a piece of amiable animation, maybe stop-motion, and to preserve the humour it should be narrated as written.

SPLASH! By Millie Haldane

Silver Winner 2012 Age 10-13
“Sonya lived in a quiet neighbourhood in South Florida. She loved the heat and didn't care much for other people's company. Most afternoons she sat out by the pond on her deck chair reading her magazines and watching the golfers enjoying their game.”

A mysterious tale from Millie, concerning Sonya reading on a deck chair by her pond, disturbed by a strange splash from the pond, but lulled back to sleep by the warm sun. It’s atmospherically told, building a sense of unease into an otherwise idyllic scene with little occurrences of oddness, leaving us with an unsettling mystery at the end. It’s quite nice to see a story set outside the British Isles. There are quite a few that crop up in the finalists each year, but I don’t remember many from the winners.

Coming Home by Isobel Murray

Gold Winner 2012 Age 9 and Under
“As the train gets closer to London, the view from the window becomes dull and colourless, almost like a lost world. It reminds me of a toy city, which is old and cracked and nobody plays with any more.”

This is another story with great emotional truth and maturity. The narrator is a young girl heading back to London after the war (WWII this time), having lived with a Mrs Brisbane as an evacuee in the countryside. Actually this is another mother-daughter story, the girl worrying about how she will feel about her mother after so long away, and how her mother will feel about her, and also if her younger brother Oscar will even recognise his real mother. Isobel uses some wonderfully mature language, and her story structure is excellent, the last line echoing and paying off the first line in a beautifully touching fashion.

Defining Moments by Isobel Harwood

Gold Winner 2012 Age 10-13
“Oh no! I don't deserve this, do I? I sighed nervously, ragged breaths following, my second week of high school about to implode! As I turned, I saw Peter, missing his old knight costume, but beautifully improvised with a paper crown and branch sword. He was surrounded by a group of smirking teens, shooting names and sarcastic arrows.”

This is a tale of friendship and growing up, the narrator is a girl who has started “high school” (Americanisms sneaking in) and becoming involved with a new group of friends who “talked hair, boys, boys ... boys!” Peter is her childhood friend from the age of four, and from the dropped hints we can piece together that he has some form of autism; doesn’t like to be touched, doesn’t like things out of place, but blessed with a profound imagination.

Peter has been away to Ireland and is now back; the narrator feels that she has moved on from his social awkwardness, his strange ways perhaps now an embarrassment to her with her new “cool” friends. Or does she put old friendships ahead of new ones?

Although it’s more about friendship that anything stronger, there’s a hint of love story to this, perhaps enhanced by the Arthur/Guinevere game played by Peter. It’s not quite, but it does raise the point that although many of these stories are about very deep love between child and parent, child and grandparent, there are only a few romantic stories; I’d guess that the children in the upper end of the 10-13 category will be thinking of such things, but writing about it at that age is potentially embarrassing or awkward. There’s a fascinating gay love story set in the trenches of WWI in the 2017 finalists which is very bold by the writer. There are a few other love stories throughout the years, but this is probably the least explored genre. I would guess, really, that it’s something that the children has less real experience of, whereas the tales of love and loss between child and grandparent/parent are much more readily accessible and real to them. Which is fine, really, this is just a stray observation.