Pair are praying for reading success in prayer book awards

Feb 11 2010 by Laurie Stocks-Moore, Chester Chronicle

TEENAGERS are revising religiously for a national prayer recital competition.

Polly Booth, 16, from Tilston, and Catriona Wooley, also 16, of Hatton Heath, will compete in the senior section of the national finals of the Thomas Cranmer Awards – organised annually by the Prayer Book Society.

The pupils who attend Moreton Hall, Oswestry must recite a chosen passage of around five minutes from the 1662 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer from memory.

They will then be judged on their delivery. The competition is designed to introduce a younger generation to the centuries-old book and to encourage public speaking skills.

Polly, said: “It is really good for your confidence and we gain a lot of knowledge from really getting behind the meaning of the text.”

The girls will face young people from across the country at the finals in London's Charterhouse on Thursday, February 25.