Queen praises ‘writers of future’ as she presents prizes for BBC competition
Camilla met each winner during the 500 Words awards ceremony, which was filmed for a special episode of the BBC’s The One Show.
The Queen praised young “writers of the future” as she presented the prizes during the final of a national writing competition at Buckingham Palace.
Camilla met each winner during the BBC 500 Words awards ceremony, which was filmed for a special episode of The One Show on Thursday, World Book Day.
The young finalists had their entries read in the palace’s ballroom by a group of celebrities which included Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman, comedian Matt Lucas, McFly’s Danny Jones and Tom Fletcher, actress Rose Ayling-Ellis, comic actor Rob Brydon and JLS’s JB Gill.
A performance from Oliver and Dodger from the musical Oliver! was also played to the audience, in which they started singing Consider Yourself in the BBC studio, were filmed making their way through the streets and to Buckingham Palace, before the young actors walked in with hosts Alex Jones and Roman Kemp.
The Queen started her speech by asking the audience to “consider yourself at home”.
She said: “I know from meeting the judges that they’ve had an almost impossible task and from the illustrators that they’ve had an extremely enjoyable one.
“Some decades ago, a famous author said this, ‘You can make anything by writing’. He was quite right.
“By his writing, this man made many things: a wintry land that could only be entered through a wardrobe, mysterious creatures that could talk and play the flute, boxes of enchanted Turkish Delight and a lion whose roar could break spells.
“He was, of course, CS Lewis, whose The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was published exactly 75 years ago.
“Just like CS Lewis, you have proved through this competition that you can make anything by writing.”
She added: “The white witch’s power was in her wand and yours is in your pens.
“I can’t wait to see what wizardry your writing will produce in the future.”
The Queen ended her speech with another CS Lewis quote: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
Asked why it was so important to her, Camilla said: “Well, I think sitting here you’ve got the writers of the future.
“All of these children here have such talent, I’ve read quite a few of their stories.
“I think it’s so lovely that we’ve got all these future writers.”
Asked if she still finds time to read, the Queen replied, “I do when I have a holiday”, adding: “I do try occasionally to read at night but I read two pages and fall asleep and have to start again.”
The ceremony celebrated the achievements of six winners from two age categories, five to seven and eight to 11, with recognition given to gold, silver, and bronze recipients in each group.
The Queen then presented them with medals before they were escorted back to their seats by Gladiators Nitro, whose real name is Harry Aikines-Aryeetey, and Fire, whose real name is Montell Douglas.
The final ended with Jones and Fletcher singing McFly’s All About You, before the guests were invited to a reception.
Six illustrators: Momoko Abe, Dapo Adeola, Rob Biddulph, Yasmeen Ismail, Lydia Monks and Nigel Parkinson; were commissioned to illustrate the winning stories on display at the reception after the final.
Camilla is an avid reader, patron of a number of literary organisations and has been supporting the children’s writing competition since 2015.
Since it was launched in 2011 by Chris Evans on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, the competition has received more than one million stories from children throughout the UK.
