2004
2004 Short Story Competition Winners

As part of 2004's Joy of Books season we challenged you to write a short story, no more than 500 words long.
Here are the winning stories - in audio and text.

(Still keen to write a short story? - click here)

The stories could be about anything at all; the only conditions were that you currently live in Staffordshire, used to live in Staffordshire, or you work here.

We got nearly thirty entries, so our panel of judges had a lot of bedtime reading to do...and the judges were: Sue Owen, Managing Editor of BBC Radio Stoke; Ruth Alexander, our Joy of Books producer; and Cat Burton-Cartledge from Waterstones in Hanley.

The standard of entries was great, and the judges spent some time deliberating, but we can announce the two winners now...

Jacqueline Spry from Gillow Heath in Stoke-on-Trent with her short story Birthday Surprise and Glenys Spraggett from Great Bridgeford near Stafford with her her tale Full Circle.

And you can hear the stories here...

It's happened. I suppose I always knew it would. But I didn't think it would be like this…not on my fifty-ninth Birthday.

"Close your eyes," she orders from the kitchen. The three syllables twang with mock humour and I know that she's about to bring in my Birthday cake.

She approaches the dining room table, her heels clicking like tiny bullets on the Canadian maple floor that she'd insisted on last year. I preferred the Axminster, but I gave in. I think, even then, I knew that time was running out.

"Happy Birthday, dear Douglas!" she sings, her voice becoming at least a semitone flatter as she reaches the last line.

Her arm rests loosely around my shoulder for a moment and the Chanel that I bought her last week mingles with the smell of the melting wax. Her lips, still full, brush mine. But when I try to nuzzle my face into her warm body, she moves away.

"Now keep your eyes closed for another two minutes, darling. I've got another little surprise for you."She pats my head and I feel like a puppy. I don't think puppies feel passion, do they?

Her heels click back across the maple floor. I sit obediently at the table, waiting. I can feel the heat from the candles on my face. How many this year? It might be difficult. She likes to work out neat multiplications that result in my age…that way she can save on candles and satisfy her instinct for calculation at the same time.

Of course, it gets harder as I get older. Last year, she ended up with 2 X 29. But this year's more of a problem. She's stuck with 59. I realise that it's the first prime number she's had to cope with since we've been married.

I say the word out loud a few times, quite softly at first, and then more boldly… prime, prime, prime, prime. It doesn't seem to have much to do with me. I'm hardly in my prime any more, am I? They all said it wouldn't last and they were probably right.

But a few months or even weeks of passion bursting with every colour of the rainbow is surely worth more than years of a life that's never come alive. She'd wanted to be married, have a ring on her finger and be a Mrs.

And I wasn't going to say no, was I? Even if the unspoken bargain involved shopping at the very best furniture stores, rather than getting the flat packed stuff all her friends were having to buy.

It's as I feel the two minutes stretch into three, that I hear her car reversing down the drive. I open my eyes and stare at the cake. There are no golden flamed sums this year. The candles are starting to smoulder and the black wisps spell out a single word…Sorry.

Full Circle by Glenys Spraggett from Great Bridgeford near Stafford

Tom hitched the footstool closer and perched his slippered feet on it as he snuggled down in his chair.

Sighing, he lowered his white-whiskered chin on his chest and folded his hands over his pleasantly full, waistcoated, round stomach. In the warm room the only sound to be heard was the low drone of the radio and a faint chirp of birdsong outside the window.

A frown of irritation crossed his face as his downward drift into sleep was interrupted by a whining voice emerging from the corridor.

"My daughter is coming this afternoon. I'm going home today"

"No Agnes you're not going home today - there's no-one to look after you."

It was the nice Scottish nurse that Tom liked so much. Patient and pleasant, she made time for all the patients in her care and Tom appreciated her kindness.

Tom squeezed his eyes tight shut and tried to close his ears to the whining woman being wheeled to a chair next to his.

"Wait until I tell my daughter about this. She will have me out of here and she will certainly make a formal complaint about you - all of you"

Same threats, same whine, same response. Her daughter had a full time job and a home to look after.

They all knew that; they'd heard it so often. Her daughter was a careworn middle aged woman with too much make up and a too thin body and whose forehead was permanently creased in a frown. In ten years she would be exactly like her mother.