"Sock It To Me!" BBC Tomorrow's World Presenter Asks Local Kids

Do readers of The Marlpit have as many problems as I do finding matching socks in the morning? I usually fall back on wearing yellow on the left and pink on the right, but maybe help is at hand! How about designing a special pair of your own which you can't miss?

I'd like to tell everyone in your area about a brilliant competition for children between 3-18 years old which allows them to do just this. Design a Sock for Starlight is a project which asks kids to draw, paint or even create a collage of a sock they would like to wear - a really fun means of encouraging children to be inventive. A winning entry from each of four age categories will then be manufactured by Sock Shop and 50p will go to charity Starlight Children's Foundation for each pair sold.

Aside from being able to march into a shop, point to your socks and say 'I designed that!', each winner gets £100 worth of art and design materials and a further £500 cash for their school.

Starlight is also asking for a donation of £1 per entry to help it grant the wishes of seriously and terminally ill children such as one little girl who wrote to them recently asking: "Dear Starlight, please can you arrange for three stars to be named after me, my brother and my sister so that they can still speak to me in heaven". Starlight got in touch with the International Star Registry and her wish was granted.

Call 0207430 1642, email socks@starlight.org.uk or pop into your nearest Sock Shop for an entry form) or if like me you've just the wrong side of 18 years, you can still make a donation by sending a cheque to Starlight Children's Foundation, 11-15 Emerald Street, London, WC1N 3QL. A schools pack is available for teachers - an ideal way to relieve exam stress during the summer term.

Entries have to be in by 31st July. I hope some clever kids will soon put me out of my sock misery!

Yours sincerely
Adam Hart-Davis
Author and Presenter of BBC Tomorrow's World

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Children!! If you would like to send a story, picture, joke - anything, then please contact or send it to Mel Douglass (Address and Phone Number on the Marlpit Back Page). Maybe your parents will help you!!!