STUDENTS from schools across Somerset put pen to paper for a special competition.

The Brunner Writing Competition, which aims to recognise the best in creative writing, is run by Richard Huish College and saw a record-breaking number of entries, at nearly 400, from eight different schools.

This year was the 21st year the competition has been running.

The competition challenges students to write up to 1,500 words in a short story or a poem and the theme was to focus on safety.

Schools that took part this year were The Castle School, Court Fields School, Heathfield Community School, Haygrove School, King Alfred School, Stanchester Academy, The Taunton Academy and Tiverton High School.

Sue Morkane, event organiser and Brunner Cup judge, praised the standard of work entered.

“We were a little afraid that giving safety slogans as stimulus titles would have us weeping, tissues in hand, over stories of misery and woe, but the sensitivity and imagination expressed by so many of the entrants left us, yet again, amazed and moved,” she said.

“There is excellent work going on in the Somerset and Devon schools to promote and produce creative writing.”

The Huish English department judged the Brunner competition and said they were impressed by the calibre and quantity of entries. The winners were John Gilding from Court Fields School and Willow Lay from The Castle School.

John Gilding’s ‘Know the Ropes’ was described by the judges as having ‘an excellent sense of voice which is wry and ironic,’ while Willow’s ‘A Stitch in Time’ was ‘a convincing and confident piece of writing that was ‘ambitious and complex yet maintains clarity throughout’.

Huish students also got inspired entering their work into a new exclusive competition, the Ross Paterson Award, offered by the trustees of the charity Get Home Safe.

The judges for the Paterson trophy were the Get Home Safe founders, Helen Evans and Charlotte Pitman.

They concluded Milly Forbes-Day should take first prize for her ‘convincing, realistic narrative voice’.