Thank you so much to everyone who entered the 15th and final Christopher Salmon Poetry Competition for 2025. We were thrilled to receive over 360 entries, all of which were of such a high standard it made our judges jobs very difficult this year.
We are delighted to announce that the winners are as follows: -
Under 7’s
Winner - Francesca Williamson
Highly Commended - Rose Taylor
Highly Commended -Teddy Jones
Highly commended - Emilia Harrison
Ages 7-11
Winner- Matilda Ryan
Highly Commended - Evie Fraser
Highly Commended - Afifah Shamsuddin
Ages 11-13
Winner - Amelia McCready Waters
Highly Commended -Harry Kenwright
Highly Commended -Oreoluwa Adewole
Highly Commended Oscar Lee
Age under 19S
Winner - Orla Smout
Highly Commended -Isabella Sadler
Highly Commended- Holly Jones
Many congratulations to all the winning entries. They and their family will be invited to an awards evening which is being held at Birkenhead Library in July, which is being hosted by two wonderful local poets Levi Tafari and John Hughes. The winners in each age category will be presented with a certificate and awarded £100 and the highly commended will receive a book token.
We would like to thank the judges and all everyone at Wirral Library Service and especially Diane Mitchell for their hard work and support over the last 15 years as we could not have run this competition without them. Also, a huge thanks goes to Wirral Poetry Festival for their invaluable support and help in promoting the competition.
A big thank you goes to everyone who has entered and supported the competition over the last 15 years as it has meant a great deal to us to keep Christopher memory alive.
Sadly on the 5th of February 2009 our youngest son Chris Salmon passed away very suddenly aged just 15, from a streptococcal virus and pneumonia. He was a loving, caring boy with a charismatic smile who had so much still to give and we his Parents and Brother wanted his memory to live on and to do this we have set up the Christopher Salmon Foundation.
Chris's and our friends have been a great source of comfort to us and have been so supportive in helping us fund-raise for this foundation and to them we remain indebted.
Chris was a student of Calday Grammar School and was just about to sit his GCSEs, he had hopes of becoming an author and dreamt of studying Russian and English at Oxford University. His passion for both subjects was infectious and since his untimely death, a book "The Siege of Leningrad" has been published in conjunction with Calday School - the book is dedicated to Chris and contains some of his work.
We hope that from reading this website you may be able to get an insight into Chris's life and to what, we his family hope to achieve with the funds we raise.
With grateful thanks for your support
Julie , Rich and Jonny Salmon
Foundation funds Rowan McCabe's poetry workshop at Calday Grammar
Is the total amount raised by the charity so far. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us with our fundraising.
Want to know more about the Foundation?
