Girl, 10 wins card contest

A GIRL’s drawing of a Victorian Christmas in Henley won the Mayor’s Christmas Card competition.

Charlotte Vernon, 10, was chosen from more than 150 entries who entered the contest.

Her design features the Phillimore fountain in Hart Street.

It will be made into a card and printed, having been sponsored by the Henley Standard.

Mayor Tom Buckley and his wife Claire created a shortlist of 19 entries, which they whittled down at the town hall.

Cllr Buckley said the winning design stood out for its detail.

He said: “You’ve got the town hall, the Market Place, the Phillimore statue, Victorian lamp-posts, milk bottles and the Hovis van and even a man in a nightgown.

“It just says, Victorian and Henley and Christmas. It’s captured everything. It’s really, really cool, even to have me in it and my chain.”

Charlotte, who attends Rupert House School, said she researched Victorian markets while planning the design for the card.

Charlotte said: “I was looking up the old Victorian markets and I put in the Phillimore Fountain.

“In the olden days, Father Christmas used to be green but then the Coca-Cola brand made him red so that’s why he is red now. I found that out on the internet.”

Charlotte has been entering the competition since Year 3 and has previously been awarded runner-up. She said: “I was overjoyed when I found out. I like art because you can’t be right or wrong with what you draw, because it’s your picture so if I make a mistake, it doesn’t really matter because it’s your art so no one can judge it.”

As her prize, she will switch on the lights at the henley Christmas Festival next Friday with Cllr Buckley and actress Jerry Hall. She also won four tickets to the Peter Pan pantomime at the Kenton Theatre.

Trinity School students Emily Tristem, Clementine and Christabel O’Hanlon and Arina Karkavina, were awarded second place, joint third and fourth place respectively.

Emily, who is in Year 8, drew a couple in Victorian clothes pushing a pram across Henley Bridge with a snowy landscape in the background.

Sisters Clementine, eight, and Christabel, seven, submitted colourful paintings of people singing carols and ice-skating amid Christmas trees.

Arina depicted two Victorian children posting a letter to Father Christmas.