To mark and celebrate the awarding of an Honorary Doctorate of Letters to Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall (also Countess of Chester) in recognition of her commitment to promoting literacy and celebrating literature, children in Year 6 at the University Church Free School (UCFS) in Chester each created a piece of flash fiction, a very short story of no more than 75 words.
The children met the Duchess after the graduation ceremony in Chester Cathedral on 16 March, where they presented her with a framed version of the winning flash and a bound copy of all the flashes.
1st Place: ‘A Little Treasure’ by Lily Wehbeh.
2nd Place: ‘My Helicopter Hero’ by Lilly Pilling.
3rd Place: ‘First Day at School’ by Isaac Wood.
Highly Commended:
‘The Perfect Dress’ by Isobel Ayling.
‘The Golden Star’ by Ella Bargery.
‘Charlotte and the Perfect Flower’ by Ruby Burns-Buckland.
‘Love, the Perfect Present’ by Darcy Furlong-Hart.
‘The Perfect Dress for the Perfect Princess’ by Lili Homer.
‘The Balloon Stuck in a Tree’ by Eve Mackay.
‘Uncle Harry’s Wedding’ by Alexandra Modoi.
About the day and meeting the Duchess, the pupils said:
Lily Wehbeh
‘I felt so proud to present HRH with my winning story – I think she was really pleased that I had written it especially for her. She said she would enjoy reading our stories on her journey back to London.’
Ruby Burns-Buckland
‘It all happened so fast, she just appeared behind us and started chatting to us about our stories. I was so proud we had been chosen to meet her.’
Isaac Wood
‘She said she thought we all looked very smart. I felt very special being there.’
Isobel Ayling
‘She spoke to me about our stories – she was very pleased we had written them especially for her. Afterwards I was interviewed by a radio reporter about what she had said to me – it was very exciting.’
Lili Homer
‘I will always remember the day my class met and presented HRH the Duchess of Cornwall with stories we had written especially for her.’
Eve Mackay
‘I was a little bit nervous about what would happen when we met HRH but she was so kind to us and was really excited about our writing.’
Ella Bargery
‘She talked to me about the 500 word story competition she judges for Radio 2. I told her I had entered it before – she was very pleased about that.’
Darcy Furlong-Hart
‘I really really enjoyed meeting HRH – she was so kind, she asked us questions about our writing and she said she hoped we hadn’t got too cold standing waiting for her. We had lots of photographers take our pictures.’
Lilly Pilling
‘I was so proud to be the first person that HRH spoke to when I presented her with our class collection of Flash Fiction stories. She said that she would read them all when she got back to London.’
Alexandra Modoi
‘She was very smiley – I think she was really pleased to see us waiting for her to come out of the cathedral – she knew we had written her some stories because she said “Hello I believe you have some stories for me”.’
UCFS is part of the University of Chester Academies Trust.
