OAKWORTH schoolchildren had a royal surprise when they went on to the Brontë Parsonage Museum to collect their prizes for creative writing.

Timmy Hird and Isabel Walton were shocked to discover that HRH the Duchess of Cornwall, wife to Prince Charles, was at the prize-giving ceremony.

Camilla, the Duchess, dropped in while on a recent visit to Haworth to see both the museum on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

The two pupils from Oakworth Primary School were among children from across Bradford district who won prizes in the Brontë Society’s recent Writing Worlds competition.

Timmy Hird came third in the years three and four category, while Isabel shared second prize in the years five and six category with Luca Szkwarczuk of Shibden Head Primary Academy.

Writing Worlds was organised by Lauren Livesey, Audience Development Officer at the museum, and was judged by Young Adult fiction author Liz Flanagan.

Children were asked to take inspiration from the imaginary worlds created by the young Brontë siblings and the recreation of Branwell’s chaotic bedroom in the museum and produce a piece of writing about their own spaces – physical or imaginary.

The winners and runners-up were invited to read their entries at the reception in Haworth’s Old School Room last month, before receiving their prize from Liz then meeting and chatting to Her Royal Highness.

Liz said: "It was a real pleasure to read all the stories and poems entered into the writing competition and to see how varied they were.

“The children have wonderful imaginations, and their writing was very vivid: from football matches to alien worlds, from talking wolves to mysterious visitors from the future!

“It was great to meet the writers in person too. I loved chatting to them on the day of the award-ceremony. I feel quite sure that these could be the authors of the future, if they work hard and keep writing and reading - following in the footsteps of the Brontes."

Winners received a certificate, book mark and a book token and the schools attended by the winning students also received book tokens worth £100.

Other winning students for the years three and four category were Ibraheem Mohammed Azum of Wellington Primary in first place for his story Jay’s Jaw-Dropping Adventure, and Kamil Qasim of Barkerend Academy.

In the years five and six category, Ali Ibrahim of Dixon’s Music Primary came in first with his story The Bed Teleporter, with third prize shared by Megan Muscroft and Scarlett Baxter f Shibden Head Primary Academy and Sara Ibrahim of Farnham Primary.

A special mention was also awarded to Zainab Patel of Farnham Primary.

#