{"id":9440,"date":"2022-01-19T16:13:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T16:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/?p=9440"},"modified":"2022-01-19T16:13:36","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T16:13:36","slug":"year-8-pupil-lunches-with-captain-toms-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/year-8-pupil-lunches-with-captain-toms-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 8 Pupil Lunches with Captain Tom\u2019s Family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Written by Ava Heffernan, Year 8 \u2013 Student News Team<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image alignright\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/EvaS-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9441\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/EvaS-1.jpg 375w, https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/EvaS-1-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px\" \/><figcaption>Eva pictured at Captain Tom&#8217;s family home in Bedfordshire<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>During lockdown, Year 8 student, Eva Spickernell, discovered her passion for writing in a newspaper she wrote with her friend. The project was such a huge success that the girls received local press coverage and a surprise lunch invitation from Captain Tom\u2019s family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking back, Eva explained: \u201cWe started writing articles in lockdown because everyone was looking at the negative parts of Covid and the pandemic. We decided to write about the happy things that were happening around the world, and some local things happening in our village of Beckbury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eva and her friend wrote articles for a few weeks and designed a newspaper to appeal to lots of people by including recipes, quizzes, and colouring sheets, before putting them in the Beckbury Community Shop, where anyone could get a copy for free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of people enjoyed reading the \u2018Happy News\u2019 newspaper and started emailing them to congratulate them on their work, with one woman even mentioning it to the Shropshire Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hearing about this, BBC Radio Shropshire called the girls and asked them to go on the radio, to which they agreed. As well as this, an article was written about them in the Shropshire Star newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>About the radio interview, Eva said: \u201cIt was nerve wracking and exciting all rolled into one; I\u2019ve never spoken on the radio before. We were live on BBC Radio Shropshire twice and weren\u2019t sure what we were going to be asked, but the presenters were really nice.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I knew my family and friends were listening as we were speaking, but it\u2019s hard to imagine all the other people listening in too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the third edition of the \u2018Happy News\u2019, the girls featured Captain Tom, writing about all the incredible things he did and wishing him a happy 100th birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image alignleft\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"375\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/EvaS-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9445\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/EvaS-2.jpg 375w, https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/EvaS-2-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px\" \/><figcaption>Eva (right) pictured with her friend and &#8216;Happy News&#8217; co-writer<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Amazingly, Captain Tom\u2019s family happened to hear the girls on the radio and, because of this, Eva and her friend received an invitation to have lunch with them a month later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They accepted the invitation, and Eva\u2019s parents drove them to Tom\u2019s family home in Marston Moreteyne near Milton Keynes on 16th September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Eva and her friend arrived, they were handed Captain Tom\u2019s book \u2018100 Reasons to Hope\u2019, which featured their story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the visit, the girls got to chat about what Captain Tom had done, what they had done, and met lots of inspirational people and heard their stories. They also had their picture taken and had people sign their book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eva revealed: \u201cIt was quite daunting because we\u2019ve seen them on the television, and read so much about them in newspapers and online. But they were so welcoming and encouraging that they put us at ease immediately, and I really enjoyed it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Summing up her time on the newspaper, Eva said: \u201cI\u2019ve loved every minute; it\u2019s been such an incredible experience. It was a lot of work, but writing \u2018Happy News\u2019 kept us busy and gave us a focus during a difficult time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt felt good to be doing something positive for others. I couldn\u2019t have imagined that it would lead us to Captain Tom\u2019s home. Unfortunately, we had to stop doing happy news when we went back to school, but I hope we can pick it up again in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by Ava Heffernan, Year 8 \u2013 Student News Team During lockdown, Year 8 student, Eva Spickernell, discovered her passion for writing in a newspaper she wrote with her friend. The project was such a huge success that the girls received local press coverage and a surprise lunch invitation from Captain Tom\u2019s family. Looking back, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/year-8-pupil-lunches-with-captain-toms-family\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Year 8 Pupil Lunches with Captain Tom\u2019s Family&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,80],"class_list":["post-9440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-school-news","tag-bridgnorth-endowed-school","tag-year-8"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgnorthendowed.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}