This year’s theme of Origins proved to be stimulating and challenging, and attracted a record number of entrants.

Many paid homage to Charles Darwin and his seminal work The Origin of Species: a baby Charles in his pram surrounded by babies of other species, a tribute to the Curious Mind of Young Darwin with a cut-out of him as a boy, a Lego Darwin bestriding a doorstep, more mature Darwins posing with tortoises and animals in varying stages of evolution, a miniature Darwin looking down his telescope surrounded by seeds and eggs. A scale model of his ship HMS Beagle sailed through one garden with a tiny Darwin on deck. Among all of these it was good to see another eminent Victorian: Mary Anning with her fossils for sale to passers-by.

 

There were dinosaurs, a trilobite in a tree and a large monkey under an umbrella. Entrants showed their concern for the environment with a turtle surrounded by plastic and a forlorn looking bear. Greta Thunberg sat next to a poster advertising her school strikes.

 

Some entrants explored interesting concepts: the question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, the Hand of God at the moment he created the stars, a robot clutching a future edition of The Origin of Species, a line of daughters stretching back in time, the origins of the paper advertising the festival, a mobile of packets of seeds, a beanstalk growing. There were several Eves, some with their Adams including one when they were babies.

 

Judging such amazing diversity was almost impossible but wit and imagination were what the judges were looking for, so in the end third prize was given to a gigantic knitted trilobite scaling a tree, second prize to a booth inside which two mirrors gave the impression of eggs and chickens stretching back to infinity and first prize to a terrifying, brilliantly executed Tyrannosaurus Rex emerging from the window of a terraced house.