Firstly, a very Happy New Year to you all! 2011 promises to be a very exciting year for myself and my mate, Roy Grace, with the new book, Dead Man’s Grip out in late May, and progress happening on the TV series (watch this space for updates!), and lots more exciting news as well.
My independent judging panel has found reaching a result on the Peter James Hall Of Fame competition really hard. So many of you have entered into the spirit of it with such enthusiasm, and such fun photos, you all deserve to be winners! (You can see all of the entries on the Hall Of Fame page). Anyhow, after many days of being locked up in a hotel in a secret location, with endless supplies of coffee and sandwiches, they came to this decision:
No 1: “Morning Prayers With Roy Grace”
Congratulations to Ann Beard, Deputy Churchwarden of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Mile Oak, Portslade, Brighton, and to Doug Beard (Deputy Churchwarden), Alison Woodford (Churchwarden), Anita Whedbee (Church Treasurer), Olive Hamilton (Organist), Fr. Derek Humphreys (Parish Priest), Elaine Taylor (Chorister), and Allan Farley(Chorister). I love the effort all of these great people went to. And of course, an important part of each day in the policing of Brighton and Hove is, as mentioned in some of the Roy Grace books, is the jokily called “Morning Prayers”, a review of the past 24 hours of policing in the city, which takes place at John Street Police Station every morning at 9.30. So a magnum of champagne goes to Ann Beard — and my warmest congratulations.
Runners Up: (we decided to award five rather than three):
Robert Barnes – “Robert’s cares drain away with a good book…”
Suzanne Heard “Bootsy overdoes his curiosity”
Jayne Carr “Jayne chills out in her garden”
Ruth “Ruth’s feline bookmark, Bunty”
The competition has been such as success that I am going to start a new one, again with a first prize of a magnum of Champagne and runner up prizes of signed paperbacks, with a closing date of Easter. So start snapping!
A huge thank you to all of you who entered into the spirit of the competition with your photos, and to all of those of you who had fun looking at them!