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Creative Writing Competition winner Martha

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Creative writing competition

As part of our celebrations for Book Week Scotland in November, the English department ran a creative writing competition on the Book Week Scotland theme of hope. Students could enter prose, poetry, non-fiction, essays, a short graphic novel extract or any other creative medium of their choice. Martha D (Fourth Form) won the competition with Mr Harrison, the judge, praising her work for the lovely patterns of expression, skilful use of repetition, contrast, and varied sentence length. Martha wins a copy of this year’s Scottish Book Trust anthology as part of her prize. Congratulations Martha!

You can read Martha's story below:
 

Hope

It was on the news today, as it had been for the past few weeks now. The past year. But she was used to it now. Used to the wait, the sleepless nights, the hurried rushing to the post box in the morning to check. This morning was much the same.

The first frost had coated the grass, the trees had lost their golden halo, and the once auburn leaves lay in muddy slush along the road. A few crows skipped along the tarmac, looking for worms, or a morsel of meat to devour. She knew the postman would have delivered the post at around seven o’clock, and now it was eight sixteen, at least a few sheets of paper would be jammed in the metal container. The last letter had been a few months ago now, on the seventh of September. She supposed they couldn’t send many letters there, and he tried to write as often as he could, however, it took a while for the delivery to come.

 She lived on peaks of relief and expectation. When each letter arrived, a warm wave of thankfulness swept over her, but the gaps between were dark as black holes, sucking out all her joy, all her happiness, all she dreamed for. It wasn’t always this way. In the years before they were a normal couple, deeply in love, residing in a cottage by a river, in the outskirts of the city. They had met when she was 21, and he was 23, and now three years later, they were happily married. Then the war hit. And he was called off to fight. Sometimes it hurt. Not knowing if he was alive or dead. Not knowing if he was injured or healthy. Not knowing if he was imprisoned in enemy territory or safe in allied lands.

But hope kept her going.

Each morning, hope rose her out of bed. Hope cooked her meals. Hope walked her into town. Hope comforted her in the darkness of her mind. Hope closed her curtains in the blackouts. Hope ran her into the bomb shelter. And hope put one shaking foot in front of the other, on this freezing winter morning. Hope walked her to the post box. Hope undid the latch and pulled out the letter.

It was from her sister. She had written about a tree blocking a road close to her. Even though the war raged on, life continued as usual.

But she would continue to hope. And dread. She would continue to dream of letters, and his warm laugh until the day he came home from war.

By Martha D

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