Writing Brought Us to the Palace

Join Matthew Bannister inside the grand rooms of Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition awards ceremony. It's the world's oldest schools' international writing competition and invites young people from Commonwealth countries to submit a piece of work on a particular topic. This year's theme was 'A Commonwealth for Peace'. From more than 12,000 entries, four girls have been successful. Their prize was to travel to London and receive an award from the Duchess of Cornwall. We meet the winners, Annika Turon-Semmens, Ariadna Sullivan, Hiya Chowdhury, and Ry Galloway. Also, illustrious writer and comedian David Walliams tells us how he ended up writing a children's book about a boy in a dress, Nigerian author Ben Okri describes writing while homeless, and Romesh Gunesekera reminisces about reading westerns growing up in Sri Lanka. Image: Four young writers from around the world who are winners of the Queen's Commonwealth Essay Prize. Here they are with the Duchess of Cornwall. Credit: BBC