Dr Simon Reads... BBC 500 Words (2013 Winners) - Children's Writing Contest

Dr Simon Reads… 500 Words - 2013

And so we reach 2013, the first year where I really started taking notice of the 500 Words competition. 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.

Stone Age Steve and the Dragon by Christian Morton

Bronze Winner Age 5-9
“A long time ago in medieval times there was a boy called Steve, he was well known in the village of Snottingham as he had the most smelly and horrific farts on Earth!! Because of his tremendous farts he was banished to a cave on the outskirts of town, this is how he got his nick name "Stone-age Steve" the boy who lived in a cave.”

If you’ve been following this series you’ll recall that I often say that the boys tend to write comedy and action, and the girls character and emotion. Well … by those standards, this is a very “boy” story!

Flatulent Steve is banished from his village, but witnesses a dragon attack. Even though he offers to help, the guards turn him away but he investigates anyway and discovers that the dragon is just lonely and wants friends. Steve, also banished and lonely, agrees to be his friend but in the excitement lets out “a sneaky fart”, which is ignited by the dragon’s fire, and explodes through tunnels under the village of Snottingham. And thus the pair inadvertently invent central heating and are hailed as heroes.

Michael Palin reads this one (it does bear a Pythonesque flavour), and the audience clearly loves explosive farting (who doesn’t?). A fun little story to start off with.

Watching by Archie O’Dair

Bronze Winner 2013 Age 10-13
“There is a man watching me. He doesn't think I know he's there, but I do. He was there yesterday too staring at my home as if he is waiting for something. He carries some sort of machine and it is making me nervous. I am scared and don't want to go out so I am sitting here watching him back.”

Something that crops up quite often in the 500 Words finalists are stories told from the point of view of an unusual protagonist, but where you don’t realise this until right at the end. This one is one of those, and a good example of the genre. It’s a little Kafka-esque, even.

The narrator is a mother, anxious for her family. A strange man is watching her house, she sneaks out the back way to get food but the anxiety grows. I can’t describe too much more, but the paranoia grows, little clues on the way hint to us about who, or what, the narrator really is. The story also features another 500 Words staple – a British “national treasure” makes an unexpected appearance.

Oliver Phelps (one of the Weasley twins from the Harry Potter Films) reads this one. He does a good job, despite a couple of muffed words, doing different voices and building a good sense of atmosphere, a well-written tale with a fun-dark twist.

White by Letty Neary Jones

Silver Winner 2013 Age 5-9
“Blackness, nothing but blackness. Not a flicker, not even the tiniest spark. Just empty space, stretching further and further, obscuring my memories, taking my thoughts. I don't fight it. I haven't got the strength.”

There’s a wonderful unique format to this story, with a series of paragraphs each from the point of view of a different character – The Victim, The Guilty, The Helper, The Sorry and The Lucky (who is the same POV as The Victim). The Victim is a girl in a coma after being hit by a car in a snow storm, the Guilty is the one who hit her, The Helper a medical worker and The Sorry another visitor to the hospital who now feels bad about making a fuss about waiting times. It’s a great example of how a complex tale can be built in a tiny space through a series of short, simple pieces.

Susanna Reid, breakfast TV presenter, reads this one and does a better job than some actors do. This is another of those 5-9 category winners that seems far too sophisticated for that age, a moving bit of writing.

Making Mum and Dad by Harry McMurray

Silver Winner 2013 Age 10-13
“Tim had been busy decorating the carpet with the many cereals which were supposed to be in their cupboard. Tim stood in the middle of it all, surrounded by empty cereal packets and was trying to get a heavily jammed piece of bread (he couldn't make toast) to stick to the ceiling.”

A piece of pure comedy next from Harry, in which Tim, a young boy that could give Calvin a run for his money in the hyperactive mischief stakes, has been busily redecorating the living room with breakfast cereal “his Mum completely missed the description of how he had to lick the honey loops to get them to stick on the wall”. The shock of discovering this causes his mother to fall apart. Literally. Tim then has a comic discussion with his father – “"Go away, as you may have noticed I am working and have no time for non constructive verbal play with you." grumbled Tim's Dad” which eventually leads to his father falling apart as well.

Unpetrurbed, Tim sets about reconstructing his parents, and make some modifications as he goes – an extra hand for Mum, fingers for toes for Dad. We the readers don’t know if the parents will wake up with these new appendages thanks to magic realism, or if Tim is madly deluded and going to be living with the stitched-together corpses of his parents, but I suspect the former. I hope the former!

I suspect it’s a take on the childish misunderstanding of idioms, in this case describing someone as “falling apart” or “going to pieces” being taken literally for comic effect. The funny exchange between Tim and his father made me realise that back-and-forth reported speech doesn’t crop up much in these stories, they are generally more narrative in tone and this makes a nice change.

The story is read by singer and radio presenter Michael Ball (he does the kind of classical/easy listening singing loved by a certain kind of mother), and he does a great job of it, relishing the comedy.

The Starlings of West Pier by Roxanna Toyne

Gold Winner 2013 Age 5-9
“Over the sea they came, a cloud of black, slim bodies, all focusing beady eyes on their destination. They flew past the sun, which was sinking into the murky depths of the Channel, and flocked around the rafters of the West Pier like a ball of living smoke, twisting and shifting in the evening air.”

This was the story that first really knocked me out and make me pay more attention to 500 Words. Back in 2013 when the BBC were trailing the finals, they made a promo using snippets of the BBC Drama Company readings of finalist stories, and this one featured, with the line “I watched her, this girl made of starlings”. What a great line. How evocative. What did it mean? I had to find out.

The story is one of those 500 words tales of love and loss that these children seem to do so well, wise beyond their years. The narrator is a girl walking along the sea front at Brighton, sad after the funeral of her beloved grandmother who died before she could say goodbye properly. It blends this in with some fabulous atmosphere and imagery, as a murmuration of starlings seem to show scenes from her grandmother’s youth, acting out dancers. The “girl made of starlings” is the figure of the grandmother as a young girl, formed from the starling murmuration, who comes to wave farewell to the narrator.

The West Pier at Brighton is a burnt-out ruin, one of those derelict buildings that is as dangerous to dismantle as it is to leave as it is. A blackened shell, it’s a haunting site stuck out in the sea, especially as the sun goes down and silhouettes it. There really are starlings that roost there, and if you’ve ever seen starling murmurations you’ll know what an amazing hypnotic sight these are. Roxanne conjures up these images, which are incredible in themselves, and then adds in the imaginary aspect of the starlings actually forming figures and scenes from the ball-room dancing heyday of the pier and her grandmother’s youth. I’d love to see this done as some kind of animation.

It’s an outstanding piece of writing, even moreso when you think it was written by a 9 year old. Miranda Richardson reads it beautifully.

Your Life by Olivia Hunt

Gold Winner 2013 Age 10-13
“I sit up as the alarm rings through the dormitory. 6 am. Up and dressed by 6:15, along with all the other girls. My label says 1068G. That's my name, has been for three years now, ever since the flood. Our town was destroyed, they said, and the rest of the world just seemed to disappear, so we moved straight into the vaults.”

If you’ve been reading this series so far you’ll recall that dystopian futures are a popular 500 Words theme. This is a good example. The tale is told by “1068G” as she is known, of the monotony and controlled, de-humanising way of life in her protective underground vaults, alleviated only by her friendship with “1069B”. And I feel stupid when I realise only now that “G” and “B” must represent “girl” and “boy”.

But the story has other layers. This day is to be the last in G and B’s life; Olivia stated that she was inspired by a scene from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for what happens to them. And then we learn that this is nothing more than a darker version of Big Brother, that it has all been for the entertainment of the indifferent masses. We can compare the callousness of the viewers who switch channels with indifference, with the “hollow expressionless voice” of the person running the program, with the final desperate gesture of G and B, the people that do the de-humanising in the end much less human that the ones they are trying to dehumanise. This is another story I could see as being an episode of Black Mirror; it’s very good and a powerful piece of writing.

Barney Harwood reads this, which is three now (this might be his first in chronological order). He’s a good reader, capturing the change in tones in this tale (compare with the gentler, poignant Albert Onions and Me, and the brash comedy of Londoner Pigeon). Another firm favourite of mine.