Summary - Judging - Sponsors and Prizes - Shortlisted stories - Resources - Posters - Comments - Contact us
The winners have been announced! They are
We offer our hearty congratulations to Catriona, Laura and Milly, and our thanks to them and all the competitors as we very much enjoyed reading all the stories. Now we hope you will download and read them too. The are great fun and thought provoking.
We do now have all the stories in digital form so the list below is complete. (Some of them have been scanned in with OCR software so the typos and spelling mistakes aren't necessarily those of the author.)
Copyright for all these stories belongs to the author. We have permission to display them here for you to read but otherwise all rights are reserved.
If you have any comments, or suggestions to do with the story competition or the stories we would love to hear from you so do let us know.
| Adult | |
| Catriona Silvey Consider the Bee Winner | Wolf is Suki's friend. She is way out of her depth, he helps her out, and asks for a favour in return. An innocently dreamy summer afternoon develops into a mysterious quest. Suki doesn't even know what she is looking for. |
| Stephanie Ferguson Legacy | Lily's ecosystem restoration project isn't going well, and when a package arrives she hopes it's the field samples she needs. It turns out to be something else entirely. |
| Chris Swannack The Mind Thief | Japanese John Doe found by Anglesey Abbey Heritage Site. You would have thought a 2050 detective would have an easy job, with access to the world information networks and 'Holmes 4' software just a thought away. Quantum membrane integration between man and computer, google mim tags, and personal AI avatars bring undreamed of capability (and the same technology allows super efficient solar cells). But Jack has other murders on his unsolved list and the pressure is on. |
| David Wadsworth Town and Gown | In the Eagle pub, two drinkers with very different diagnoses of the problems of the world employ the same time honoured means of alleviating their woes: they get hammered. This story is cynical, funny and perspicacious in equal measure. |
| Susan Webb A Transitional Tale | In 2050 oil is scarce so exotic food is expensive, and what is the most exotic and most sought after delicacy? - chocolate of course! The market stalls are fragrant with good things to eat, but what Alice craves is chocolate, so much so she even dreams about it. |
| Suzie Webb Our Transition Tale | Life in 2050 is much more beautiful than you could possibly have imagined forty years before. Instead of just a few birds singing, there is a whole orchestra. People have chosen (democratically - in a series of referendums) how they want to live, and the result is a world with a lot less clutter and noise and a lot stronger community spirit with delightful new traditions. |
| Under 18 (key to schools below) | |
| Laura Elworthy (HIN): Cambridge 2050 Winner | A woman watches over her two granddaughters, growing through the joys and pains of adolescence. There have been difficult times in her own life too, both general - such as the oil crises and the economic adjustments that had to be made - and personal. This story will touch your heart and leave you with a warm smile. |
| Jazzmin Huber (IMP): Cold Light | It is now 6 years since the disastrous summer of 2044, when thousands were engulfed by the sea but Cambridge was kept safe by the foresight of Dr. Roberts. Her discovery, natural energy from bioluminescence, keeps the city alive under its huge glass dome. But what about the other people, outside the city. How did they fare? |
| Elliott Jones (LYS) Green Scheme | The year is 2050. Power generating kites, fields of palm oil and solar panel covered roads dominate the landscape. The council's Green Scheme has transformed the villages and suburbs from carbon dependence to green idyll - but then they ran out of money. Within the city of Cambridge, armed gangs war over diminishing fuel supplies. |
| Kamila Karimjee (LYS) Cambridge in 2050 | It was a special day. There was a car being driven around the city and who had a car these days? Everyone was distracted by the opening of the new hospital but Abby was more interested in why the air was suddenly chill. Her Dad was cloud controller for the city - something must be going wrong! |
| Antonia Newey (LYS) 2050 | In a noisy, bustling extended family household with chickens and goats too, there's plenty to keep a child busy in 2050 and it's hard to get to school on time. This day, though is special. This day there is a ride in an airship, and an arresting view of the city from above. |
| Chris Tapping (LYS) It was the year 2050 | Not so much a story, this, as a waterfall of hilarious (mis)adventures. Our hero, John Hammond, the world class tiddly winks player, makes a brilliant discovery which could save the world (by absorbing carbon from the atmosphere) - if only he can get to the laboratory to prove it. |
| Under 14 (key to schools below) | |
| Milly Gilbert (NTH): 2050...a story Winner | Arthur has a Tooth Talk Chip and his mother is an MP. When he visits Westminster he gets free candy and pens, and an opportunity to try out his spying equipment. The trouble is, when you listen in to people talking you don't always like what you hear. |
| Sanjeeta Abram (COM): Gaps in Time | Jasmine goes for a walk and finds a strange girl, a little like herself but without a protective bubble, almost dead from sunstroke. Stranger still, her mother seems to recognise her. |
| Iris Breward (COM): The Passage | Cambridge's traffic problems are a thing of the past. The street level is pedestrian only and there are steps up to the hitch level where you hire little bullet shaped pods from the stations. Higher still, though, is the Passage where the fast Velox cars run. The passage is forbidden, dangerous and irresistably fascinating. |
| Jake Davies (CHE) 2050 Highly Commended: | A boy, alone on the street. People dying of cold because fuel is so scarce. When the lights go out (which they often do) you have to keep your wits about you. Who is the dark stranger following him and why does he want to get to 'the other side?' |
| Maria Dixon (CHE): A new world to get used to | Julie Brown wakes up after 40 years in a coma to find the world a very different place: Prince William's son Peter is King, her 84 year old mother is bottle blond and seems more like a 20 year old and the city of Cambridge looks rather different too... |
| Izzy Gaffney (LYS): My Darling | I always imagined a future world of wonder, in which science fiction fantasies would become reality and then normality ... Now, fifty years on, I consider the world we have made for ourselves... It isn't quite what she expected, and some things which used to seem important aren't any more. |
| Taha Khan (NTH): 2050 | The now nautical city of Cambridge is in peril. The long mooring chain, underneath the sea is threatening to come loose, leaving the greatest scientific city floating endlessly in the vast expanse of the flooded world. Someone is going to have to fix it... |
| Dan Shiroo (NTH): My day in 2050 | A trip in a time machine to 2050. You only have a few hours to see everything - where would you go and what would you see? |
| CHE | Chesterton Community College |
| COM | Comberton Village College |
| HIN | Hinchingbrooke School |
| IMP | Impington Village College |
| LYS | The Leys School |
| NTH | Netherhall School |
| PKS | Parkside Federation |
(:enddiv:)