My favourite School memory

1st Prize Celia Livesey

My favourite school memory is when I ran home shouting,’ Nan, there’s a new boy at school called Paul Small-Hamburger-Bones, he lives in a sweet shop.’

Nan laughed. ‘ You mean Smallbones.’

‘No! Paul Small-Hamburger-Bones,’ I insisted.

Next day he gave me a Chinese burn. Heaven … Paul Small-Hamburger-Bones loved me too.

2nd Prize Hermione Wilds

My favourite school memory is the day I stole ten pence.

Some of us believe that to write well you’ve got to write the truth; dead people like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Dean Howells. Maybe they’re right because that was also the day I learnt I was a writer.

3rd Prize: Helen Adlam

My favourite school memory is: Mr Lancaster – dedicated teacher and passionate believer in the freedom of choice. Misbehaving boys could choose the shoe with which to be beaten from an array of volunteered footwear; chatty girls could be tied to a chair or locked in the stationery cupboard. In the sanctuary of darkness I filled my pockets: pens, pencils, rubbers, paperclips. Revenge – sweet, innocent and deliciously satisfying.