Friends of St Mary's

Reproduced by kind permission of the Crosby Herald.

Date: March 7, 1991

OCR Transcript:

ENGLISH Teachcr Peter McColgan has set the perfect example to his pupils by picking up a top writing award.

Head of general studies at St Mary's College, Crosby, Mr McColgan, 43, was judged joint winner of the Sefton Creative Writing Competition short story category.

His work entitled ‘The Zoo' is a poignant description of East meeting West after the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

The delighted father-of-three from Esplen Avenue, Crosby said: "I'm very pleased to have been chosen from so many entries. Unfortunately I arrived at the awards ceremony a bit late and although I missed my own category I was delighted to accept the prize afterwards."

Writers from throughout Merseyside had gathered at Crosby Civic Hall last Wednesday for the presentation night.

Winners in the various categories were invited to read extracts from their work by Sefton's Arts Development Officer, Brian Wake who said the response to the competition was ‘encouraging.'

The judges were staggered at the volume and quality of the entries from our local writers. It supports our belief that there is a lot of unrecognised talent in the borough and throughout Merseyside," he said.

Presenting the awards was Radio Merseyside's Angela Heslop who announced that a special anthology including all the prizewinning entries and many others will be published in Use next few weeks.

The full list of winners who won prizes worth a total of £700 is as follows.

Poetry Freestyle: Winner Paul Donnelly (Birkdale) "Holiday Reading".

Rhyming Poetry: Co-winners; Ron Ellis (Southport) " Cotswold Nursing Home", Laurence Atter (Formby) "Museum Owl", Maurice Newey Bootle) "The Lost Scent'', Norman O. Morrice "The Wood Carver".

Childrens' Writing:
Co-winners: Luke O'Hanlon (Liverpool)

‘By the River-, Joanna Rainger (Waterloo) "My Coat Pockets", Clifford Chedgzoy (Bootle)" Thunder and Lighting", and Katie Matthews (Southport) "Who is HE?"

Short Stories:
Joint Winners: Peter McColgan (Crosby) "The Zoo", and Jim Mangnall (Old Swan)

"The Smell of Summer"

Callout: Entries prove there's a lot of talent in Sefton