January 9th 2011 at Gorton Monastery

I was delighted to be invited as one of the regional  judges for the Lancashire section of this poetry competition to meet finalists from the whole North West region and honoured to read out the selected poems from the Lancashire category and announce the winner, Kate Horsley with her excellent poem, 'Rules For Looking After Ian.'

The theme for the competition  was 'belonging' and produced some very moving poems, some disturbing, some heartwarming, all powerful.

The venue was Gorton Monastery, a beautiful building and the event was very well organised with refreshments and even live music.

Although some judges were unfortunately unable to attend through illness, the afternoon went with a swing thanks to fellow judges, W. Terry Fox, John Lindley, Copland Smith, Joy Winkler and Jim Bennett.

It was a fantastic event, I thoroughly enjoyed it and we were all presented with a bottle of wine at the end (the bibulous nature of poets being well known)

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