Dr Simon Reads... BBC 500 Words (2014 Winners) - Children's Writing Contest

Dr Simon Reads… 500 Words (2014 Winners)

Onwards, or backwards, to 2014, the last year that the awards were held at the Hay Festival. 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.

If you can access the BBC, try this link http://bbc.in/2jCr9e9

Should-Be’s by Juliette Lee

Bronze Winner 2014 Age 5-9
“The crackling of the fire startled me. It was a cold winter’s morning when the snowflakes danced around you and the crocuses fluttered in the stormy wind. My grandmother smiled sadly at me again. It was the 11th of November.”

This year saw the 100^th anniversary of the start of the First World War, which evidently a lot of schools must have covered because there are quite a few WWI themed stories in this year’s final. If you’ve been following this series, and especially if you’ve been reading the fifty finalists for yourself, you’ll find the linguistic ability of some of the 9 and under children to be extremely impressive; this one is very sophisticated in its evocation of scene using different senses and building a sense of wrongness with little details.

The narrator, a young girl, finds something odd in the behaviour of her historian grandmother, who has visited the war memorial. As the story goes on, she discovers the term “Should-Be’s”, and eventually learns the truth, that despite common perception the war didn’t end in 1918, but in 1919. The narrator and her grandmother are “should-be’s”, they are spirits of those who would have been born if the war had ended a year earlier, and are stuck endlessly in November. I don’t normally give away the final line of these stories as often the whole thing hangs on the reveal, but this one is beautiful – “We are Should-be’s; we are the souls of the ones who should have been born when the war was over and November is our only month. We have never seen the golden daffodils bloom, nor has the warmth of the sun ever tanned our skin…””

The inspiration, apparently, was from a misprint on a war memorial that Juliette saw (1914-1919), which led her to wonder about what would have happened if the war had ended a year later. I’m kind of reminded of the Nicole Kidman film “The Others”, as well. Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, Doctor Strange and much else besides) reads this one; sadly he makes a couple of mistakes (I’m surprised), but his distinctive voice gives it great power, especially towards the end.

Albert Onions and Me, by Owen Storer

Bronze Winner 2014 Age 10-13
“Every day as I walk home from school I pass and wonder what lies inside the old iron gates. They hang sadly from their hinges, open to the overgrown, higgledy-piggledy paths beyond. No-one seems to look after Rosemary Gardens. Twisted ivy and crumbling walls hide the beauty that once must have been.”

You’ll see what I mean about WWI looming large in the 2014 finals, as this is another where it features. The narrator, a young man, passes by the derelict Rosemary Gardens and finds the statue of Albert Onions, head gardener. Albert’s statue comes to life, and the two of them set about restoring the gardens, and at the end Albert turns back into a statue. The gardens have been derelict since the real Albert didn’t come back from the Great War in 1916.

My wife is a gardener, and she’s worked in a variety of heritage gardens belonging to big houses, and nearly all of them fell into disuse due to the young men who looked after them dying in the First World War, so this story is based in true tragedy. There are hints of The Secret Garden and Tom’s Midnight Garden, in the healing power of gardening and the magic of night-time. If given longer, this story could be expanded with a kind of redemptive arc for the young narrator.

It’s a lovely, poignant tale, read by TV presenter Barney Harwood (who also reads Londoner Pigeon in the 2015 finals). Although there are two WWI tales right next to each other, it’s also a great juxtaposition of different takes on a similar story. There are a few set in the trenches as well in the other 44 finalists, and worth checking out. I like how the kids all manage to write something familiar, but also avoid falling into cliché.

No Ideas George by Robert Jordan

Silver Winner 2014 Age 5-9
“George was really puzzled. He had no ideas at all for his 500 Words entry. He really wanted to enter but could not come up with a single idea. He thought, and thought, and thought some more – but still nothing.”

After a couple of sad, poignant stories set around WWI we now jump to some pure comic genius. George would like to write a 500 Words entry, but has no ideas, so he goes for a walk. He is completely oblivious to a wide range of exciting events that could provide inspiration, such as an escaped tiger, the Queen in a chip shop, a bank robbery and so on. It’s a great idea, fitting in nuggets of about five or six stories around a very clever frame. Although, I’d quite like to see what George’s story about a sunflower called Geoffrey turns out like (the only idea he comes up with in the end).

This one is read by Matthew Lewis, aka Neville Longbottom from the Harry Potter films, doing a good job of a fun story. Robert was only seven years old when he wrote this, and something I’m noticing from the 2014 is that the younger storytellers are showing great sophistication; it’s hard sometimes to recall which one was in which age category.

Diary of a Minotaur by Nicholas Lockhart

Silver Winner 2014 Age 10-13
“Day 1,460. Four years. Tried to escape. I think I'm in a maze. Or is it a labyrinth? I can’t decide. Whatever it is it's long, twisty, damp and has quite a stink.”

Two touching WWI stories for Bronze, and now two comic pieces for Silver, 2014 really was a year for patterns. I’ve mentioned previously, but one of the nice things about 500 Words is when the kids come up with a different format for their story – e-Courtroom.com as a series of tweets, or Mr BB Wolf vs Miss RR Hood as letter, for example. This one’s a diary, a format surprisingly not used much. I think Nicholas was studying Greek mythology in school, and was inspired to write from the perspective of the minotaur.

The Minotaur, who after a year of eating spiders and pondering on the unfairness of being thrown in a maze, or labyrinth, decides to call himself Marvin. He gets so hungry he eats a child, discovers a trail of beans and some more children. Some he eats, some trample each other to death. He names the cracks in the walls. Eventually, on his 27^th birthday, someone comes along with candles and string, but it doesn’t go well for Marvin; he doesn’t know it, but we can guess that the stranger is Theseus.

Read by Dick and Dom, a duo of children’s TV presenters who do various “mischief” type games and pranks based shows, and they do a great job on the comedy, eliciting audience cheers and laughter. Funny stuff.

Lost Underground by Daniel Martlew

Gold Winner Age 5-9
“He needed to make a decision and made a run for the doors. He swiftly jumped onto the platform and looked around for his parents. He recognized no one. He made his way to the escalator and looked up at the people who were rushing towards him. It was so busy he could hardly breathe.”

I’ve noticed this is a good year for the boys as well, and also this is another very sophisticated piece for a nine year old. Daniel gets stuck on a tube train when his parents get off, and the story very ably catches that time of panic you get as a child if you ever get separated from your parents, particularly in a scary, busy environment like the London Underground.

Daniel, the writer, paints little details, like the orange fruit Polo sweet being a lucky omen, building a great picture from the small things. But the tale has an eerie twist. Daniel (the character), waits at the next station for his parents, but when they arrive his sense of joy is crushed – there is a strange doppelganger child who has taken his place. His parents ignore him, but the replacement boy sees him and gives him a strange, eerie smile. What a stirring, scary twist. You want to know more. You want to know what Daniel does next, what’s going on with the changeling child, are there others, will Daniel get back to his parents? Brilliant work.

Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Paddington and many others) reads this with perfect inflection and timing; the ending sends chills. One of my (many!) favourite 500 Words stories of all time.

All The Time In The World by Susannah Ames

Gold Winner 2014 Age 10-13
“Isn't time peculiar? Sometimes it flies, free like a bird. I'll never be free now. A single envelope changes that. But sometimes each tick feels like a lifetime passing. At the moment I have all the time in the world, literally. I have no age. That changes today. March 19th 2875. Today I get my countdown. That's where my time starts. And eventually ends.”

The dystopian future story is a common feature of 500 Words, you may have noticed. I get shades of Philip K Dick from this one, although I suppose Logan’s Run is also applicable, and maybe shades of Hunger Games.

It’s set in a future where the length of your life is set by the rulers of the new society, based upon tests for intelligence, appearance and charisma, and you are informed of how much time you have been allotted in a letter. According to the narrator the longest time known is 265 years, the shortest is, allegedly, 10 minutes and the girl who was given it died while reading her letter.

The narrator has received her envelope, and hence her countdown has started. It’s like opening exam results, but many times worse. She recalls her feeble efforts in the testing, and we share her anxiety. Since she’s had the letter for 10 minutes she knows, at least, she hasn’t broken the record, but eventually she plucks up the courage to open the letter and … cliffhanger!

This one is read by singer Paloma Faith, which is a strange choice. Paloma has a powerful singing voice but her speaking voice is not in the same field as the trained actors and experienced presenters, and she makes a few stumbles at the beginning. She gets into her stride at the end, though. This is possibly one to listen to the BBC Drama Company reading instead, or simply read for yourself, it’s a good one and like the 5-9 Gold Winner although it stands perfectly as a short piece, it feels like there’s scope for a lot more continuity, in a good way.