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Deanna's Landmarks

In the UK there is a children's TV magazine programme called Blue Peter, the name comes from the flag that ships fly when they are setting sail, and the logo is the image of the sailing ship against the moon that you see at the end of the Disney version of Peter Pan.

The program started in September 1958 and has continued its unbroken run since then, originally once per week, then twice a week and now three times a week. It was the first "magazine" programme in the world and has been ground-breaking in many ways ever since.

Partly as a celebration of its 40th birthday and partly for the end of the century Blue Peter launched a competition inviting the viewers to send in stories, poems and pictures celebrating some event of the last 100 years. The winners and runners-up were published in a book The Day Something Happened (£3.99 from Puffin books, ISBN 0-14-130354-9).

I wanted to enter something for the competition so we discussed it, my parents being in publishing themselves they knew that it would have to be about something slightly unusual, something other children wouldn't pick, and something that would attract the attention of the judges. So we went through a CD with a timeline and selected some possibilities, so I could choose.

I chose the launching of the first living thing into space: Laika.

This was a particularly good choice as it is historically and scientifically significant, plus it contains opportunities for emotion.

I researched the subject, reading everything we had in the house on it. Then we discussed how best to write it -- I only had 100 words. After that I spent one Sunday writing and re-writing it. My parents gave me the best advice they had for this type of thing: Just write what you want to say first and then start chopping it down to size. So I did.

It didn't win but I was a runner-up and my essay is published in that book. See the page here (21K).

Interestingly it wasn't the only entry in the book to feature Laika, so we weren't that original after all.