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The stories showed a great deal of imagination and included a huge range of characters but aliens, fairies, dragons and cats were popular choices.

The final winner was Gran鈥檚 Great by Geraldine Durrant.

Charlie Higson (author of the Young Bond series and co-creator of The Fast Show), was our judge and chose Geraldine鈥檚 story because听 鈥榠t鈥檚 funny and manages to pack a lot of story into a very short space, which is trickier than it looks. I also liked it because the writer completely ignored the brief - which is sometimes a very good thing to do.鈥�

Geraldine鈥檚 prize is to have her story illustrated by a top illustrator and we鈥檒l be filming the process for our TV news.

Gran鈥檚 Great by Geraldine Durrant

鈥楽he bakes and knits, and says things like "take your coat off indoors or you won鈥檛 feel the benefit":听 you鈥檇 never guess she鈥檇 been a pirate when she was younger.听

Back then she had red hair and striped stockings and drank sherry: pirates mostly drink rum, but Gran says sherry is more ladylike.

Pirating isn鈥檛 the life for everyone, but Gran says if you don鈥檛 mind sleeping in a hammock, and听 being called Scary Mary or Mad Moll, then it鈥檚 a career more girls should think about.

Long hours of course, but you get to travel -听 and if you like eating fish and bird-watching it鈥檚 ideal, really.

Gran doesn鈥檛 do pirating any more: too much red tape.

鈥淭ry sending a cabin boy up the rigging in a force nine these days, and they鈥檒l have Health and Safety on you before you can say doubloon,鈥� she says.

But she still wears her old pirate hat round the house, and carves the roast with her cutlass: she says it reminds her of 鈥渢he good times鈥�.

And she keeps a crocodile under her bed.

He鈥檚 pretty harmless really, although if he鈥檚 in a bad mood she has to run from the bedroom door and leap on to her mattress so he doesn鈥檛 nip her ankles.

But Gran鈥檚 pretty spry for her age and I think the exercise does her good.

I know she misses her old shipmates - Flint-Hearted Jack, Fingers O鈥橫alley and Cut Throat Malone: and, as she says herself, the crocodile鈥檚 company.

So sometimes she and the crocodile have some hot milk, then they take out their teeth, snuggle down back-to-back under the eiderdown, and snore quietly as they dream about the bad old days aboard The Black Barnacle.鈥�

We鈥檒l also be showcasing some of the other entries on our site in the near future.