A great Briton

LITTLE Britain star David Walliams inspired a schoolgirl from Fontmell Magna to win a national contest exploring what it means to be British.

Lucy Gill, 14, a year 10 pupil at Shaftesbury School, has won the 14 to 16-year-old category of the Morgan Stanley Great Britons 2006 competition with a poster designed around the comic's epic swim across the English Channel last year.

She said: "I chose David Walliams because I thought what he did was really good and I was a fan of Little Britain and had been to see the live show. He was the one that meant the most to me."

Lucy and her classmates were asked by their teacher to design a poster on their Great Briton' and to come up with a 50-word statement about What it means to be British'.

Once they had completed their work each of them got the chance to vote for the ones they felt were the best and should go forward to the national competition.

Lucy not only triumphed in both categories among her classmates but her statement and poster were also both announced as winners in the 14 to 16-year-old section of the contest, and her work was then shown in the Daily Telegraph.

Deputy headteacher Martin Williams said: "Nobody predicted that both entries would turn out to be the work of Lucy but they were chosen by the whole class completely democratically.

"Obviously I was delighted to hear that we had won the first competition, but completely amazed that we won both."

Lucy took the inspiration for her work from the Union Flag, with red representing the old-style telephone boxes, blue for the sea surrounding the country and white as a blank piece of paper allowing anyone from anywhere to make their mark.

The youngster has now sent a copy of her poster to the Little Britain star and is hoping her Great Briton' will sign it for her to make the memento even more special.

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