Well done to everyone who entered the 2006 PhotoFiction writing competition.  In the summer term 06, we received a fantastic 195 entries from young people all over Sheffield and South Yorkshire. View the competition

PhotoFiction winners were invited to come and collect their prizes and perform their winning entries as part of ‘Young people take the Mic’ (an Off the Shelf Literature Festival event, organised by Sheffield Young Writers.) Several of the winners braved an encouraging audience of around 80 young people and adults to perform their work.

The winners of the PhotoFiction writing competition 2006 were …

Well done to those who made it to the shortlist: Amy Duly, Hannah Soar, Jake Chapman, Jane Rudd, Page-Nicole Adamson, Vicky Fletcher, Yusef Jones, Abbey Jones, Alexandra Whiteley, Carlo Berry, Farah Merali, Hannah Groombridge, Helen Daniels, Holly Langman, Leo Birtwhistle, Rhiannon Griffiths, Sally Bunting, Sidra Batul, Sophie Archer, Victoria Burkinshaw, Patrick Littlewood (Apologises to anyone who may have been missed due to incomplete information).

Here are the 1st place winners in each category.

*First place winner in the 11 to 13 age category & overall winner
Janet - By Laurel Quinn, aged 12, Tapton School

*First place winner in the 14 to 16 age category
How Do I Tell Him?  By Sophie House, aged 14, Stocksbridge High School

*First place winner in the 17 to 18 age category
Annie - By Erin Heenan, aged 18, King Edwards VII School

Janet by Laurel Quinn Introduction: I thought that the people in the picture looked happy and peaceful and I wanted to do a piece of fiction where someone was looking back on old, happy times. We often used to sit here, in Cornwall. It is peaceful. I like it. The soft splash of the sky blue sea - not too far away, we could walk to it. The colourful wild flowers growing, untouched, behind the bench. Janet used to love those pretty flowers, especially the golden marigolds and these other flowers, purple ones – I don’t know their name, I’m no gardener, not like Janet.

When I was younger, I’d run down here and pick her a bunch of marigolds and she’d laugh and say I spoilt her. When our children were small and still lived at home, we’d all walk down here. They would play on the white sands and paddle in the calm sea while Janet and I would sit up here. Janet would watch them, but I would wonder… if you had life again what would you have changed? I still wonder that as I walk down here every day in her memory. We have a picture of this very seat. Not a very good one, mind, but at least of me and Janet. Our granddaughter took it. Eleanor she’s called. Was a couple of months ago when they came to visit. So our Ellie borrowed my old camera and took it from in the flowers. A photograph of us from behind. My daughter, Gemma, took loads more, proper ones of our faces, but somehow I just liked Ellie’s blurred picture. After Jan passed away I had it framed and I put it on the dresser. Makes me smile as I thing of the good old times. I got another photograph of all the family and put it on her grave today along with some marigolds, all in full bloom. Wonderful! As I walked back afterwards I thought, Janet’s in the sea and in the flowers and in her prize garden. So all the way home I said goodbye to her, my Jan, and as I did so I said goodbye to all my worries too, because I knew Janet was still here, somewhere.

How Do I Tell Him?  - By Sophie House

How do I tell the man I’ve been married to for 50 years that I’ve got cancer? This is what I face.

I found out a month ago. The doctor called me in and sat me down.
“I’m afraid you’ve got cancer.”  He said it. Just like that. One day I’m sat with my husband; the happiest I could be; the next I’m told I’ve got stomach cancer and have got three months to live. Devastated. That is the only word to describe how I felt.

At the moment I’m sat next to my amazing husband and thinking, “How can I do it? We’ve sat on this bench hundreds of times; shared so many happy memories; but now I’ve got to ruin his whole world. In two months I’ll be dead but he’s got to cope with the rest of his life without me. His life will be over.”

There’s something wrong. I know it. She’s never this quiet. I’ve asked her so many times but she just turns away. As though she can’t bear to look at me. We’ve been married 50 years and I know her better than she knows herself; but I feel as though I’m losing her. She went to the hospital last month. A check-up she said. I’m not sure. She came home and since then she’s seemed so distant. I don’t know what’s going on.

Since I was told about the cancer, I’ve gone through it over and over in my head. How I would tell my wonderful, fabulous, lovely Charlie that in two months he will be sat on this bench by himself.

I’m scared. Of dying, never seeing Charlie again, and of leaving him to face this world alone.

Last night I dreamt that she died. My blissful Mae. Dead. It made me think. What if it really happened? My world would fall apart. A day apart from her makes me feel empty and lonely. How would I cope if she left this life for ever?

He needs to know. But how do I tell him?

Annie - By Erin Heenan Introduction In the picture, the little girl looks happy. I took this happiness, and chose to view it more of an obsession and present this in a pro feminist light to show how poor body image can take over a person’s life. A condensed world of perfection. Annie’s house was perfect even down to the towelling carpet and embroidered net curtains. Annie’s house was perfect because she was perfect. She was a leggy brunette with tiny waste and big brown eyes.

She had the perfect husband who fathered the perfect children. She was also perfectly plastic. Annie’s perfection was immortalised in synthetic state which in turn highlighted my fleshy imperfections. Annie was my best friend. She was my confidant, my role model. However I was set to fail before I had even started to become Annie. I was 8 when I first confronted the distorted image of my blotchy podgy self in the chipped bathroom mirror. Even my house didn’t meet the criteria. We didn’t have that aquamarine bathroom that Annie did, or the posh television with the silver buttons. It wasn’t like I didn’t try. Mom got angry though, when I painted the walls and I cut my hair. She hated it when I refused to answer her shouts unless I was addressed as Annie. She didn’t like it when Mrs Thompson called to tell her she thought I had an “over active imagination” and little Tommy Smith didn’t want to play mummies and daddies any more because he got scared when I hit him. I only did it because he wasn’t playing right. Annie said so. In the 70’s women who looked like my mom and my teachers and my next door neighbours came on our television, the one with brown buttons that you had to press really hard. They said it was ok that not everyone looked like Annie and Annie didn’t have the perfect house/husband/children because she was perfect. It was because she was plastic. I was 8 when I realised I wasn’t Annie. I was 12 when I realised I never would be. I was 14 when I knew I would be much happier not being Annie. I was 15 when I said goodbye to Annie…and her unobtainable perfection.

Cube Magazine, Sheffield South City Learning Centre, Near Newfield School
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