Short Story and Journalism Competitions - Winners Announced

Mrs Bruton brings news on this year’s winning and highly commended entries.

Against a backdrop of unprecedented worldwide turmoil, our young authors produced work of stunning versatility and insight, proving that KES imaginations cannot be locked down. Inspired by the work of our guest editor, poet and journalist Imogen Russell Williams, pupils wrote fiction exploring The Other Side of the Story  as well as articles exploring topics from mental health in rugby, to ham and pineapple pizza and Machiavelli! 

‘I was exceptionally impressed (not to mention made terrified and envious!)  by the standard of the writing submitted,’ says Imogen who selected the winners.  ‘Judging was HARD! There was a turn of phrase or an image I found arresting in every piece. The environmental and political passion was also hugely inspiring, as well as the deep-felt empathy for others.’ 

Short Story Competition Results

‘I’ve always been a very passionate and involved reader, in that I often want to resolve stories which I feel are desperately unfair – to reach into a book and rescue a character,’ explains our guest editor, poet and journalist, Imogen Russell Williams, talking about her collection The Women Left Behind. ‘Almost all the women and girls in my collection came from stories or plays or poems I’d loved reading multiple times when I was a book-wormy little girl myself.’

‘I wrote it for teenagers and children because I think alternate versions or retellings can be an amazing way of getting to grips with a difficult original (I would recommend Tanya Landman’s condensed retelling of Jane Eyre, for instance),’ Imogen goes on to say. ‘As a teenage pal of mine pointed out, my book is basically fanfic, and I wanted to say: feel free to make up your own versions of the canonical, to enter sacred landscapes and meddle with them.’

So that’s exactly what the pupils of KES did! Our Short Story Competition theme The Other Side of the Story elicited a glorious range of responses, from retellings of ancient myths and tales – Baba Yaga, the Silkies, Helen of Troy, Romeo and Juliet - to alternative histories, the stories behind famous paintings and future dystopias. Our young writers asked what happened after ‘Happily ever after…’  or before the first chapter began. They encouraged readers to read between the lines, to peer behind the canvas and in the margins of well-known texts; to look at stories upside-down, back-to-front, and from new and interesting angles. 

In Years 7-8 the range of stories was extraordinary and wonderfully diverse and imaginative. Highly Commended certificates were awarded to the following:  Benjamin Brown Cardinal Henry Beaufort; Anna Winkelmann The Truth behind the Camera; George McDonald The Other Side of the Story; Ella Miles Last Moments of the Reich; and Patrick Hewett The Servant of Fate. Runners up in this category were Chloe Barrington Mr and Mrs Clark; Minna Alt-Reuss Converging News; and Maddie Bobin Help. The Winner of the Year 7-8 Short Story Prize 2020 was Clemmie Scotland And the Moon Weeps for Me. ‘Norse mythology was brought vividly to life in this powerfully told tale of monstrous cruelty.’

The standard in Years 9-11 was outstanding. The following were awarded Highly Commended: Lucy Smith Death Observes Juliet; Sophie Swale Empyrean; Hepzibah Bevis Codes of Once Upon a Time. Runners Up were Elise Withey The Night Tide and Ellie Martin Feather Red. The winner of the Year 9 -11 Short Story Prize 2020 was Grace Burn with From the Face that Launched a Thousand Ships: ‘A lyrical and tragic retelling of the fall of Troy which blends poetic description into a stark reimagining of the past.’

Not to be outdone, the entries from Years 12-13 showed remarkable ambition, scope and ingenuity. Highly Commended was awarded to Ben Blackwell’s Welcome to the Savannah and Luke Reynolds for Terrestrial. Runners up were Tess Xiao for The Start of Something New and Cross Examination by Guy Willcock. Our Year 12-13 Winner and also Overall Winner of the 2020 KES Short Story Trophy was Alice Mumford for The Other Side of The Sea: ‘A masterful piece of story-telling, tense, lyrical, gradually unfolding its layers to a perfectly balanced conclusion!’

You can read Alice’s winning short story below.

The other side of the sea     

           
April 1923, Cambridge
It was uncharacteristically warm for early spring; the oak-panelled walls seemed to confine them within the small room. Out of the window, the grass below the college, trimmed into pristine lines, was bathed in sunlight.

Florence looked down at the artifacts, meticulously arranged in square boxes. She wished she could have been involved in the excavation itself; instead, her job was to catalogue the finds. 

The door creaked and then opened: in walked a tall, angular man in an immaculate tweed suit. He bowed slightly as he entered the room. Florence wondered why Klaus insisted upon such formality. 

Cecil, pointedly ignoring his entrance, continued to work. He gestured towards the next box. “What’s in this one, Florence? Anything of interest?” 

She read aloud from her notes:

“Graves 31 and 32 (adjacent): Saxon, 450-500 AD. 

31:      Female (elderly)
          -one blue ‘melon-type’ bead; pyramidal-backed comb
32:      Male (elderly)
           -metal tools, fragments of animal bone/antler”

Klaus strode excitedly across the wooden floorboards.

“An artisan!” 

His softly accented speech accelerated.  “I have seen such tools before, near Köln. And the splendid bone comb from the adjacent grave…Who would have expected it? A Saxon artisan community here?” 

Cecil coughed obviously several times.  

“Artisan? I hardly think so, Herr Doktor.” His mouth contorted in exaggeration around the German words. 

“This is a Saxon grave: as crude as the Saxons themselves: barbarian raiders from-  across the sea.”  Cecil’s eyes rested briefly on Klaus. “All they created was chaos and destruction:  the magnificent Roman civilisation ravaged by uncultured brutes.” 
Florence took the opportunity to step outside for a breath of air.  She looked towards the excavation site…

September 31, near Duroliponte

The trees almost block out the sun’s weak light, thick bracken and moss-adorned branches obscuring the sky. Her footsteps seem unsettlingly loud in the silence of the forest; the snap of every brittle twig threatens to betray her presence. Through the trees, she glimpses the pale stone of the road: it perseveres south, rigid and unrelenting, all the way from Durobrivae.

Durobrivae. She closes her eyes and everything appears again, vibrant bruises embedded into her vision. Cries shatter the cold light of morning. Fragments of pottery in the dirt. Their voices, cruel and strange tongues, as sharp as their long knives. A broken necklace: azure beads are flung and scatter like sparkling droplets of water. Blemishes of blood on mosaic tiles. One final glance back at a home engulfed in foreign fire.
She clutches the single remaining bead in her hand; tense fingers grip the calm, smooth curve of the glass. She walks on.

A sudden sound breaks through the dense wood. Harsh, foreign syllables twist their way from through the trees with a raw force. Every instinct compels her to run. The trees are colossal columns; sword-wielding, many-armed enemies she must swerve to avoid. After only a few steps, she trips, stumbles and sinks behind a wide oak tree; its coarse bark provides a comforting shield. Alone in the darkness of the undergrowth, forgotten gods traipse through her mind. They had belonged to her people, and in these turbulent times they return.

Their fleeting, ancient voices disappear before she can contemplate them; but she is faced with uncertain silence, not the iron of raiders’ weapons. A distant rustle becomes an obscured call – muffled through the legion of trees. Adiuva me!  The sound of her own language compels her to turn and walk back.

She sees him lying on the forest floor, a pale face amongst shadowy plants. He is one of them: one of the raiders from across the sea. The slight movement of his leg, distorted at an unnatural angle, reveals a trail of crimson on the fallen leaves. She rushes forward.

It is dusk when they reach the edge of the forest; supporting him, her shoulders ache, and he winces with each step. The silhouette of a building is distinct against a sky of fading, ashy violet. The paved stones are obscured and indistinct; ivy and trailing vines creep between cracks in the marble. A shadowy sentinel guards the door – a lion, carved in smooth stone. In an instant she recognises this place: it belonged to her people.
The door opens to a chorus of worried voices, overlapping in strange dialects. Hands reach out to support him; at the threshold of the villa, she stares blankly as the world becomes vague and blurred, her mind smudged with exhaustion. 

Blinking, she opens her eyes to the warm glow of candles. Soft, anxious voices and smooth woven fabric surround her. The scene is peaceful chaos: children dance and hide behind Corinthian pillars, sheep gather around a gilt-edged table. Jewel-bright tiles are concealed by dust, folded cloth and straw. But there are no weapons. These cannot be the same people who destroyed her home.

Weeks pass, and time heals.

She stands, once again, at the door. She must go. If they are still alive, she will find her people at Duroliponte. The people who years ago came from across the sea cluster around her, offering farewells and gifts, warmth and gratitude. Finally, as she turns to leave, he is there. He lifts a strand of hair from her face and holds out a comb: exquisite and delicate, triangular like the peak of some distant mountain in the land of his people. She slides it between intertwining curls as he whispers to her in Latin: rich, musical, desperate words. When you return, he says, but mist-blue eyes divulge the futility of that hope. 

She steps onto the pale stone of the road, the road which perseveres, rigid and unrelenting, all the way to Duroliponte. 

When you return.

August 1939, Köln

Dear Florence,
I write to you amidst chaos and with a heavy heart; we are packing away our museum-pieces for safekeeping against the inevitable.  Are you doing the same with your Saxon treasures? 

I pray that it will not last long and look forward to showing you our latest acquisitions – when you return.
                                Yours,
                                Klaus

Journalism Competition Results

With a dizzying array of entries on topics ranging from Venetian macaroons to ‘factory education’, ‘Game of Thrones’, political memes, living with ASD to nostalgia for Stalinism, picking the winners was no easy task for our judge, journalist Imogen Russell Williams.

In Years 7-9 she awarded Highly Commended to Charles Barden for Factory Education: An ongoing problem that can no longer be ignored;  to Orla Rostom for Is Veganism just a flash in the (frying) pan?; and Caitlin Street Aspbergers’ from an Aspie’s View.  Runners up were Claudia Williams for Burnt my Hawaiian Pizza – should have used Aloha temperature and Archie Maggs for his piece Mental Health in Rugby – A missed tackle? The  winner of the Year 7-9 Journalism Prize 2020 was Elise Withey for Cakes, Caffe and Other Venetian Disappointments: ‘A witty and sardonic piece of travel/ foodwriting that was toe-curlingly funny as it eviscerated the restauranteurs of Venice – a perfect blend of Gordon Ramsay and Bill Bryson!’

The array of topics tackled by our Year 10 -13 entries was just as varied. Highly Commended was awarded to Martha Murray for her review of Game of Thrones; Jemima Tweedale for Killer Kelp and Guy Willcock for Britain on a Platter - Bruising Decade Ahead . Runners up were Bella Shorrock for Was Machiavelli Machiavellian?   Ally Darnton for Chemistry Collective and Meg Lintern for Will the Election be won by Memes?

The Winner in the Year 10 – 13 category and Overall Winner of the 2020 KES Journalism Competition was Alice Mumford for I want to live in the USSR  again‘: A probing and thought provoking piece of journalism which would not be out of place in a national broadsheet.’

You can read Alice’s winning piece of journalism in full, below.

“I want to live in the USSR again"

From Red Army veterans in the Russian Far East to Kazakh teenagers, there is growing nostalgia for the days of the Soviet Union.

The 23rd of February is ‘Defender of the Fatherland Day’.   Aleksandr from Blagoveshchensk eagerly announced this to our group early one morning, explaining that the Russian holiday marks the anniversary of the founding of the Red Army.  He shared a monochrome photo of himself in uniform, aged 20; my eyes were drawn to the unmistakable hammer and sickle of the Sovietskaya Armiya. I had joined the online group to practise my Russian but realised early on that I would be learning more than verb conjugations.

Aleksandr is joined by a growing number of Russian citizens today who publicly and privately show their immense pride and nostalgia for their country’s Soviet past; some, unlike Aleksandr, never even lived during those times.

A page on the popular Russian social media site VKontakte named МЫ ИЗ СССР (“We are from the USSR”) seems to embody this nostalgia, displaying a confusing mix of Soviet military memorabilia, lamentations about today’s youth and recollections of the simplicity and purpose of times gone by.  The photo montage shows a grinning Yuri Gagarin; cheerful Soviet children play trumpets while Stalin observes from high above the scene. Several such pages exist and attract hundreds of thousands of subscribers, many of whom regularly engage in heated debates with anyone who dares to question their views. 

In 2018, a poll from Russia’s Levada Centre of sociological research showed that 66% of Russians regretted the fall of the USSR: many are young people who long for an era for which they have no memory.  Born eight years after the Soviet Union collapsed, 19-year-old Nazariy from the mountainous Ust-Kamenogorsk region of Kazakhstan confidently stated “I’m proud of our USSR” before producing a 25-point manifesto detailing exactly why he wishes he could return to a country which has long since ceased to exist. In those days, he claimed, “every child dreamed of becoming not a rich man but a cosmonaut” and “competent comrades” managed their lives harmoniously – unlike in the dangerous, corrupt capitalist world of today. Nazariy never acknowledged that there might have been negatives to this alleged socialist utopia. But how much was he aware of the totalitarian government and brutal repressions? Russian textbooks are known for their primitive forms of Photoshop, with key figures mysteriously erased.

Harvard professor and novelist Svetlana Boym describes the relationship between many Russians and their Soviet past as “reflective nostalgia”, making a distinction between this personal, non-political longing for a lost era and “restorative nostalgia”, a desire to recreate the past.
Many Russians remember a time when things were simpler: their childhood, or the stories of their relatives' childhoods. Nostalgic rhetoric revolves around a pastoral, rural utopia. Young people spent their time enrolled in Soviet youth programs, eager to serve their homeland, instead of wasting their time on the internet. The music of today does not compare favourably with Viktor Tsoi’s velvety voice. There is a collective memory of returning home to the warm aroma of Babushka’s freshly-baked bread, and how you could buy a full meal for only sixteen kopeks. 

The older generations in this country may bemoan the use of smartphones and social media and link these with a decline in wellbeing; in Russia, these technological and social developments are seen as directly linked with the period of perestroika and so the change of political regime is held responsible.

This particularly seems to apply to Evgenia; aged nine during the collapse of the Soviet Union, her family abruptly left the remote Kamchatka military base that was their home. She witnessed her ex-military father, now unemployed, descend into alcoholism. “My dad started to drink,” she said, “just to forget about the disaster, so he wouldn’t see how our beloved country was raped and ransacked.” Evgenia vividly described her mother’s tears, attending the funerals of those for whom depression and alcoholism had led to suicide. It is no wonder that for her, the end of the Soviet Union meant more than just a change of governments and political restructuring – it represented the shift from an innocent, comfortable childhood to trauma and the breakdown of her happy family life.

Perhaps one of the most shocking aspects of the recent surge in nostalgia for the USSR has been an almost reverence towards the most infamous of Soviet leaders: Josef Stalin. The Moscow Times proclaimed that 42% of Russian respondents named Stalin as the “most influential historical figure” in living memory.

In response to my tentative questions, Nazariy interjected scathing remarks about the West’s favourite president (Gorbachev) whom he credits with the destruction of the empire he yearns for.  Evgenia responded quickly with a passionate defence of the “Father of Nations”, Stalin: “He gave us assurance in Tomorrow.” 

“I do not worship him,” she added as a hurried afterthought, “but the whole country was united with his name”. For Russians, World War II represents a brief moment of national pride and Stalin has been transformed in many people’s memory as a wartime hero.  In The Stalin Puzzle: Deciphering Post-Soviet Public Opinion, the authors write that, particularly in the central Asian republics, Stalin is now “much more a national icon than a political model”.  

One catalyst to the resurgence of Soviet nostalgia may be the recent increase in political dissatisfaction among Russian citizens. In 2015, only 10% of those surveyed by the Levada Centre disapproved of President Vladimir Putin; now, as of March 2020, the number has risen to 36%, the upward trend continuing. One member of our group confided that if they were granted an audience with Putin, they would shoot him! 
Svetlana Boym writes that a nostalgic person “desires to obliterate history and turn it into private or collective mythology”. But how much of this nostalgia to return to the USSR is a deliberate decision to idealise the past? For citizens of the former Soviet Union, reality has been distorted by decades of propaganda romanticising an era of repression – to such an extent that 19-year-olds from Kazakhstan boldly and wistfully remark: “I want to live in the USSR again.”