TOP 50!!!

Last month, on the second day of the So You Think You Can Write competition I submitted my entry Behind the Scandalous Façade. I then watched as each day more and more entries went up on the site. The number must have been around 650 when the deadline came around. Could my chapter catch an editors eye? I certainly hoped it would, but with so many other brilliant chapters out there, I wasn't so sure.

On Wednesday I was at my writing desk, armed with lots of coffee and chocolate, when I saw the twitter announcement that the editors had started emailing the Top 50. My phone flashed to tell me an email had come through. I opened it and nearly dropped the phone. My entry had made it through to the Top 50.

To say I was excited is an understatement! I am so thrilled to have made the Top 50 and would like to thank everyone who has read, commented, tweeted and liked my entry. A massive thanks to you all for the support.

So what next? Well my full manuscript was sent to the editors yesterday so it's a case of waiting to hear who makes it through to the Top 10. I'm just so thrilled to have made it this far.

I'd also like to offer all those writers who didn't make it through a big hug. I know what it feels like to be there, but you should all be proud of yourselves and keep writing!

Remembering Senghennydd

On the morning of October 14th 1913 my great great grandfather Charles Frederick Hill started a new job at Universal Colliery, Senghennydd. He lived with his wife Lillian in Caerphilly and was not a miner, but a tailor and in hard times had taken the job in the mine.

At ten past eight that morning an explosion ripped through the mine, killing 439 men and even boys as young as fourteen. My great great grandfather was among them and was the 237th casualty to be recovered from the mine. He was just 37.

Whilst my mother was researching our family tree this terrible story came to light and she was fortunate enough to be able to talk to older relatives about the disaster and was even given a book The Valley of the Shadow by John H Brown about the disaster in 1913 as well as a previous one in 1901 in which 81 med died.

Today at 12.25, a memorial is being unveiled to mark the centenary and remember other Welsh mining disasters. More about this story can be found here.