A BOASLEY Cross Primary School pupil has beaten off stiff competition from hundreds of thousands of children from across the UK to be a finalist in BBC Radio 2's '500 words' competition for school children.

Nine-year-old Natalie Miles was last week named as one of 50 finalists for the competition with her story 'The Arctic Fox' — a story about an arctic fox who lost his family in an arctic storm and later found them trapped beneath a frozen lake.

He seeks the help of his friend the polar bear, only to nearly drown on the way, but after being saved by his good friend they both go to save the fox's family.

Natalie's mother Nick Mackman said: 'The children were told to write stories for their homework from school for the 500 Words competition. Natalie went back to her grandma's that night and just wrote it.

'She loves writing stories — she's always got one on the go. She also loves reading so she has really grasped how to write descriptively. In her story you really get a feel of how her characters are feeling.'

Nick, a sculptor, said she and her husband Simon submitted the story for the Radio 2 competition and three weeks ago found out she had made the shortlist of 3,000.

'We were absolutely thrilled to bits, we couldn't believe it,' said Nick.

'Then we were absolutely floored when we got the email last week saying she was in the top 50. We went into her school to tell her and she was totally wide-eyed.'

Natalie has now been invited to St James' Palace in London where the winners will be announced live on Chris Evans' breakfast show on May 29.

The shortlist is split into age categories — ages seven to nine, which Natalie is in, and ten to 13. There are 25 children in each category and there is a winning place for bronze, silver and gold in each.

Nick said the only catch was that just one parent could go with Natalie to St James' Palace and because she was the 'arty' parent and Simon was the one who helped Natalie and her twin Tristan with English, it was only fair that he should go with her.

'We thought we could all go and Tristan and I will be waiting outside the gates of the palace for the winning announcement,' said Nick.

'We're so thrilled with how well she's done. She loves Cressida Cowell who writes the How to Train Your Dragon books and Michael Morpurgo and she thinks it would be brilliant to be an author and illustrator one day.'

The winners of the bronze and silver each receive their height in books as a prize but the gold winners receive Chris Evans' height in books and will have their story read out by a famous actor — last year it was Benedict Cumberbatch.

'She is so excited and I think she's slightly overwhelmed. She was chuffed to bits to hear an actor reading her story on the website.'

To hear Natalie's story being read by an actor, visit the website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rfvk1">www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rfvk1 and click the aged nine and under category.