RIBI Young Writer competition 2014

This year we had as follows:

16 entries from John Flamsteed School Age 11-13 Intermediate Level
4 entries from Swanwick Hall School Age 11-13 Intermediate Level

13 entries from Swanwick Hall Age 14-17 Senior Level (Special Needs)

This was a group (ASDAN) and were judged by the local committee. Considering the various difficulties they_have, 3 prize winners were selected together with certificates for every student supporting the competition from both schools.

Congratulations to Amber Valley Rotary Club for promoting the competition and hopefully more clubs will be involved next year.

The purpose of this year’s competition was to produce a written or typed story in prose entitled ’What a difference that made to my life/their lives’. That can be anything the story teller wishes to define on A4 or 500 words is a suggested submission.

The local clubs made their decisions, as district coordinator my role was to select ONE winner in each category to be submitted to RlBl for the National Competition.

THE WINNING ENTRY for the Intermediate Level submitted to RIBI is

EVIE MAY MIDDLETON Age 12 A John Flamsted School
(Submitted by Amber Valley Rotary club)

Runner up — Will Beresford Age 11 John Flamstead School
(Submitted by Amber Valley Rotary Club)

John Bendall
District Literacy Coordinator

Please find Evie Middleton’s entry below

What a difference that made to my Life

It started off just another normal ordinary day… the usual same school day, same lessons, same people etc… ordinary and happy. I was quite content with my Life; I had lots of friends and a busy home Life with myself and my three siblings running around the house! Arriving home one day things were about to change…

CANCER… seriously? Mum and dad have just sat us all down and they’re telling us Dad has CANCER… the word is screaming very Loudly in my head, it won’t quieten down I can’t think straight, should I get up and run, should I cry, should I hug Dad? I look around at my elder sister to try and read her face, to give some sort of direction as to what to do… she’ll know… she stares blankly back at me or through me I can’t tell, she Looks misty… bLinking I realised my eyes had decided to make their own move, a solitary tear fell onto my cheek. What are we going to do? I thought. How will we go on in life really happy? My Mum couldn’t hold the tears back, neither could we.

The next day at school all I could think about was how my Dad was. I wasn’t concentrating properly. I was so upset that I went into the toilets and cried. I wanted to get home, see my Dad, and check how he was. There were more important things to be thinking of, other than maths. They don’t know anything about problem solving, I just wanted to tell them what it actually meant.

I decided to tell my friends when they caught me crying once. They felt sorry for me, I didn’t really want them to feel sorry for me because it didn’t help. I guess it helped a little because I can tell them about it now. I’ve wanted to tell someone for ages but I was too scared.

A couple of years later he was told he needed chemotherapy, to make him better. I was even more upset when he was told the cancer wiLL never go away. He was poorly every single day because of the chemotherapy. One day after his chemotherapy (he had been planning it for months) we said goodbye and he went to climb the biggest mountain in England, Wales and Scotland, all in THREE DAYS with his friends. He did it for a charity and raised over £5000.

I was so proud of him when he came back. After his 6 month chemotherapy, I came home from school. My mum sat us all down again and said that the lump inside him had ………………………… ..SHRUNK!! He was much better the chemo had done him good. Although going through chemo included him losing his hair, being poorly for days, not allowed to go abroad and more.

Im so proud of him going through all of that chemotherapy, what a difference that made to my Life!!

By Evie May Middleton, aged 12.