The write stuff | 18 February 2016

The deadline for Radio 2’s 500 Words competition falls next Thursday. Children between the ages of five and 13 are invited to send in a story, no more than 500 words, to compete for the prize, the chance to have their story read on air, live to ten million listeners on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show. Evans, the irrepressibly enthusiastic Radio 2 DJ, came up with the idea in 2011 (mainly because as a child he was not at all interested in books or reading but belatedly began to realise what he had missed out on), and from the beginning it has been a huge hit, gathering more than 120,000 entries in 2014. It’s also a clever way for Radio 2 to fulfil its outreach remit, using the organising power of Broadcasting House to sort through and judge the extraordinary number of entries.

In Thursday night’s celebratory programme on Radio 2, presented by Sheila Hancock, 500 Words: The (Short) Story So Far, we heard from some of the winners. Angus was just nine when he entered, with a story so scary he still finds it terrifying to read. Isabel was seven when she won, encouraged to enter by her grandfather. Spelling, grammar are not deemed important; it’s the originality of the storytelling that the judges are looking for, in the hope that children previously not interested in fiction, words and writing will discover that inventing stories is fun, and listening to them being read on radio is even better.

Meanwhile, for those children for whom writing will always be a chore, the controller of Radio Five Live, Jonathan Wall, is planning to reintroduce the Young Sports Commentator competition for 11- to 15-year-olds. He entered it as a 13-year-old and even though he just lost out on the prize the experience led him into a career in radio.