Bath Festival Winner

Year 11 student, Hannah Jones, has won the Bath Festival Young Writers’ competition.  The 16 year old Chew Valley pupil was entered in the 15-18 category and beat off 200 competitors to win the competition. 

Hannah’s story, ‘Strange Fruit’, is based on Billy Holiday’s rendition of the song at the Cafe Society in Greenwich Village in 1939.  The song protests against the horror of the lynching of black men in the Southern States of the USA in the early decades of the 20^th Century.   She had recently read ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ and imagined the child character, Dill, growing up and moving to New York.  The experience of the song brings back to him the horror of the racism he witnessed one long summer in Maycomb.

Headteacher, Mark Mallett, commented, ‘when Hannah wrote the story for me as an English assignment, I knew at once that she should submit it for the competition.  The piece is beautifully written and carries a powerful, emotional charge.  It is a profound reflection on the power of art to combat social evils such as racism.’

Hannah’s prize was awarded at the Guildhall at a winners’ reception – a Kindle electronic reader.  To read Hannah’s story, please click here.

To see Billy Holiday perform the song go to:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs