A WALKERBURN pupil’s prize-winning prose makes a plea for a village ice cream shop and cake shop.

Eleven-year-old Rosie Mitchell, is most interested in her village’s future.

She will now play a starring role in this year’s Walkerburn Festival after winning the primary school’s essay competition.

Rosie, whose favourite treats are strawberry and chocolate ice cream, and pink jammys, said: “My essay was about past, present and future of the village, I’m most interested in the future.

“We need a Caldwells, just like in Innerleithen, so I can get strawberry and chocolate ice cream. We also need a Greggs for my pink jammys.

“I wrote a page and a quarter, it took some time to research but about an hour to write. Everyone said my dad would have been really proud of me.

“Like Skye my granny cried when I phoned her to tell her that I’d won the essay competition.” The essay competition is part of Walkerburn’s Festival week, which this year starts on Sunday, June 22. It is designed to get Walkerburn children thinking about the place where they live, both its recent history, the present day and how they imagine its future.

Modern day Walkerburn was founded in 1854 as a community located around the mill.