Queen congratulates teenage winners of Commonwealth essay competition
The awards ceremony was hosted at Buckingham Palace.
The Queen congratulated “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” teenage essay prize winners by comparing them to the young author of Mary Poppins.
Camilla has been hosting the Commonwealth’s oldest writing competition for a decade and this year’s theme was “our common wealth”.
The competition received a record-breaking 34,939 entries from 54 Commonwealth countries.
She said Pamela Travers was describing writing that “by some strange magic, makes the reader part of the story”, and added “This is definitely true of our wonderful finalists: thanks to your talents, your readers are taken on amazing journeys with you across the Commonwealth.”
Camilla added: “Now, if Mary Poppins were here, I wonder if she would be telling me to hurry up with a brisk ‘spit spot’ so that we can get on to the prize-giving. I will therefore end by saying that there is just one word to describe you all – but I might need some help from Gyles to get it right. You are utterly supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
The Queen congratulated junior runner-up, 13-year-old Victor Austin Kiyaga from Uganda, on being the second pupil from his school to be placed in the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.
Actor Richard Ayoade read an extract from Victor’s poem and introduced it by saying “when I grow up I hope to be as good a writer as you, but I doubt it, because this is tremendous”.
Victor is from Mukono and studies at Namilyango Junior Boys School. He writes for his school newspaper and was awarded a participation certificate in the 2023 awards.
Emma and Sex Education actor Tanya Reynolds read an extract of Erynn’s writing to the crowd.
Erynn, from Puchong, started writing and doodling in a travel journal at the age of four and has since shifted her focus to the supernatural and fantasy genres.
Camilla asked her how long she had been writing, and said: “Four? You just kept on going?”
She added: “Well it shows how good you are, it’s absolutely fantastic, you must have very good schools out there to help teach you. That’s brilliant.”
Camilla told Evangeline “you’ve got to keep writing, you’ve got such talent”, before saying to her father “you must be very proud”.
“Two winners from Malaysia – that’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant”, she added.
After the awards were presented, the Ngati Ranana London Maori Club performed at the palace and the Queen told group members, some of whom are from New Zealand: “I’ll come and see you again, tell me where you are and I’ll come and see you.”
