‘Greenwood Prize’ rewards skills in historical fiction 

Tonbridge’s Second Year boys have been testing their skills in the literary genre of historical fiction.

The Greenwood Historical Fiction Essay Competition aims to encourage students to read widely and to explore this rich and diverse area of storytelling.

The whole year were invited to choose a book to read during the school holidays: boys were then asked to write an answer to the question, ‘What insights does your novel give into the period in which it is set?’

Run by the History Department, and now in its second year, the competition is named in honour of former Tonbridge pupil Adrian Greenwood, whose interest in historical fiction, kindled at the school, led to him becoming a successful author.

Thanks to a generous bequest in Adrian’s memory by the Greenwood family, the school’s Smythe Library now houses an extensive historical fiction collection.

The winning essay was by Matthew Smith (JH2). He wrote about The Things They Carried, a collection of short stories by American novelist Tim O’Brien, which is about a platoon of American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War.

Six other entries were ‘highly commended’ and these are listed below.

Matthew will be awarded the ‘Greenwood Prize’ at a school ceremony and will receive a £100 book token. Boys who were ‘highly commended’ will also receive book tokens as well as a copy of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, which Melanie Robinson, Head of History, describes as “one of the most influential works of historical fiction ever published”.

Melanie added: “The essays were incredibly strong this year and I was particularly impressed by the variety of books that the boys had chosen, and by how challenging some of them were. All of the winning essays were written with imagination, compassion and sensitivity, with Matthew’s, I felt, being the most eloquent. 

“He also carefully considered the drawbacks of simply using factual sources to find out about the past and the value of the ‘human narrative’ that such novels can provide.”

Adrian Greenwood (WW 1986-91) was a British historian, biographer, author and art dealer, with a particular interest in nineteenth-century British military history. In addition to his books, he wrote hundreds of articles on antiques and collecting.

The Greenwood family has donated two of Adrian’s books to the school library – Victoria’s Scottish Lion: The Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, and Through Spain with Wellington: The letters of Lieutenant Peter le Mesurier of the ‘Fighting Ninth’.

Overall Winner
Matthew Smith (JH2): The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Highly Commended
Max Freudenheim (MH2): Alone in Berlin by Hans Falada
Tom Kwok (MH2): Spies by Michael Frayn
Dom Hopley (MH2): Blood and Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Joshua Bentley (MH2): The Baghdad Clock by Shahad Al Rawi
Ed Middleton (PS2): White Rose, Black Forest by Eoin Dempsey
Andrew Sergeef (FH2): The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn