Paul proudly displays the cup he won at Burnley Writers' Circle.

Budding young Burnley writer Paul Abbott had quite a pleasant and unexpected surprise recently when he opened his mail. He found a card from script editor Simon Masters, now working on the BBC series "Poldark." Paul of Healey Wood Road, won a special award for the most promising new comer at Burnley Writers' Circle two weeks ago. "I don't know how Mr Masters could have found out about my writing unless someone from the circle sent him some of my work. But I received a really nice card congratulating me on the work I had done," said Paul.

A pupil at Barden School, Paul, who is 15 joined the writers' Circle a year ago, and has written several thrillers and romantic stories. "My teachers encouraged me to concentrate on writing because I always had good marks for essays" he said. Paul has spent much time in hospital over the last six months, and hasn't done as much writing as he would have liked. He has only been writing seriously for the last two years, and the newcomer award was the first he had ever won. The presentation was made by Mrs R. M. Roberts, president of the circle, who, writing under the pen-name Josephine Hilton, first suggested forming a local circle 21 years ago.

At the moment Paul is studying for his CSE and O level exams at school, and is writing a project, and later another story, about the work of the NSPCC. Although Paul has no more competitions planned for the future, he is always ready to enter with the encouragement of his aunt, Mrs Carol Watson, herself a keen writer of poetry. Paul is the first to realise that writing is a very competitive field where only the very best can succeed, and this is one of the reasons he has decided not to make a career of writing. "I've written to publishers and had some very encouraging and helpful advice from them, but I am still hoping to be a medical technician in the Royal Navy when I leave school."