The Saint Margaret Mary Roman Catholic Primary School
Short Story Writing Competition
2007

Hi again.
For this year’s Short Story Competition, the pupils of Liverpool’s Saint Margaret Mary Roman Catholic Primary School under eleven years of age, were asked to adapt Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol into a modern day equivalent.

The children had read the story as a part of the curriculum prior to Christmas 2006 and had studied what the great author was thinking when writing it and some of the entries I received to judge were amazing in their imagination and ingenuity.

The 2007 competition was extremely difficult to judge but, the overall “winner” (despite everyone who entered being a “winner” in their own way), was Emily Boyle, who received family tickets for Scrooge starring Michael Barrymore, at Liverpool’s Empire Theatre. >>Read about Emily’s night in the Spotlight

In second place came Karl Otty, who received a £20 Gift Voucher and a certificate for his efforts. Well done to you, too. Other certificates were awarded to Jessica Costigan, Laura Smith, Kerry Smith and Anthony Riley for their entries.

Thank you all and very well done.

My thanks go to Live Nation and The Empire staff, not least to Press Officer Chantal Barton, for donating this wonderful prize, as well as to the staff and pupils of Saint Margaret Mary Roman Catholic Primary School for making the competition such a success and to Margaret Murphy who provided a fine critique of Emily’s work.

Congratulation Emily. Very well done indeed.
Chris High.

St Margaret Mary's Junior School

“Emily Boyle's A Modern Christmas Carol is an entertaining read. I loved the choice of name for her main character - Grimson could be a character straight out of Dickens, and in true Dickensian tradition he lives up to his name. Emily has made good use of simile, coming up with some unusual associations - I particularly liked the description of the roof of the house, 'as pointy as the tip of your pencil.' A well-deserved winner.”

Margaret Murphy (Best selling author of the Merseyside-based Crime novel, Now You See Me and Writing Workshop host for BBC Radio Merseyside). www.margaretmurphy.co.uk