This is my copy of ‘Emer’s Ghost,’ presented to me in Shelagh School in 1985, as a prize for designing a bookmark during Louth Libraries’ Book Week. Catherine Sefton is the pseudonym of Martin Waddell, from Newcastle. Co. Down, so I felt some local interest.
This was the first prize that I won outside school, so it convinced me that one day I could become a great artist! Prior to this, my only award was a box of chocolates for a painting of Zacchaeus up a tree, when I was seven in England. To my chagrin I found that I was expected to share these with the whole class!
The book was quite scary, me being ten, but I was intrigued to see the heroine was on first name terms with her local RUC officer, something I did not feel would happen in my neighbouring South Armagh.
My winning bookmark was in the shape of an elongated, opened out book, with the slogan ‘Just one little look, will make you read this whole book.’ I see from the frontispiece that I only came second! But I was very chuffed.
