IT MIGHT not have been as glamorous as the Booker - but judging Bishop Auckland Town Hall's short story competition recently was probably a lot more fun.

Practise to Deceive was launched by Wear Valley Writers four years ago in memory of founder member Tom Wetherill and has now established a nationwide reputation. Entrants come from all over the country and winners have gone on to fame and glory.

Jonathan Tulloch won the 1998 competition with a story about two Geordie lads desperate to find the money for Newcastle United season tickets. That went on to become the film Purely Belter.

So you can see, standards are high and it has to be taken seriously.

I realised how seriously when The Box arrived. The box contained over a hundred short stories, each totally anonymous and each in one of those see-through plastic pockets. There were four judges - novelists Julia Darling and Elizabeth Gill, creative writing tutor Margaret Wilkinson and me. Gillian Wales of the Town Hall did all the organising and the chairman, Bishop Auckland novelist Wendy Robertson, kept us all in line.

For a start, she divided us into two teams of two. Each team would read half the stories, make a long list and swop with the other team. This is what was in The Box.

OK, it was a mistake to tip the box up as I was trying to open it. The stories in their plastic pockets slithered out and all across the sitting room floor. Like an independent life force.

For the next two weeks they took over the house. The pile in the box got smaller. The tottering tower by my desk got higher... I read a few stories each day, making notes on each one. All were competent, some were very good - I marked those with a question mark - and a few leapt off the page saying, "Choose me!" and I marked them out with stars. Stray stories still seemed to escape from the box and become man-traps on the study floor. You could skate round the house on those plastic covers.

The competition's theme was The Sentinel and there were a fair few stories about soldiers standing guard, one or two of which were very good. Others had taken a more general approach and sentinels included everything from old buildings, ghosts, crows and interfering mothers-in-law. The variety was part of the pleasure in judging.

Round two of the judging was lunch at Wendy's, (I told you it was fun) but before a sip of wine could pass our lips, Liz Gill and I compared notes. She'd given hers marks out of ten. Her top marks coincided exactly with my enthusiastic stars - which was a bit of a relief. With a few very minor quibbles, it was easy to agree our long list which we sent to the other team and got theirs in return.

More slithery plastic pockets.

By this time every story had been read at least twice and the long list had been read by all five of us, at least three times. Bet they don't do that for the Booker. We sat round the table and started all over again on the long list with our lists and our stars and our marks out of ten. By the time you've read a story for the fourth or fifth time, you really know if it's got something. Some simply could not take the re-reading and drifted slowly out of the long list. In some, we were still finding more to delight us so they went straight to the top.

For five very opinionated people, there was a surprising amount of agreement, give and take, points made and noted. All very harmonious.

Then we came to a story we'd called Angie. At which point I sat up and said: "I don't care what the rest of you think, I will fight for this. This is definitely a winner." And the others all laughed because they were all saying and thinking the same thing.

So that's how our winner emerged, a brilliant story by Jadzia Race, a retired social worker from Heddon-on-the-Wall, a Polish Geordie who didn't speak English until she was five, but who writes with a sparkle and wit that is totally beguiling.

Second was Eileen Jennison, a 33-year-old mother of four from Bishop Auckland. After devoting years to her children, she's just got a degree in English and History from Sunderland University, is working at Aycliffe Young People's Centre and has already nearly finished her first novel. Ironically, the person she beat into third place was her former drama teacher, Peter Laurie, also from Bishop, while the other third prize winner came from Surrey.

We had a very jolly presentation night at Bishop Auckland Town Hall and, as the authors read from their stories and the audience murmured appreciatively at all the bits we'd liked too, the judges beamed like proud mothers.

We think, we hope, we might have given some new writing talent a bit of encouragement. Now all we have to do is to think of a theme for next year. And prepare for the plastic covers...