SCHOOLGIRL Lindsay Rees has hit the headlines as junior Journalist of the Year in the North West.

The 13-year-old from Great Harwood has scooped the top junior award in a Boots Opticians Young Journalist of the Year competition organised by Sight Savers International.

Her winning entry was the The Daily Braille, a newspaper front page of stories and pictures about cataracts.

Young people between the ages of 12 and 18 were challenged to submit an article on the subject of 'restoring the miracle of sight'. Lindsay, a pupil at St Augustine's RC High School, Billington, worked on her entry as part of a class project in English.

She also put in time at home and carried out research in the library.

Lindsay said: "It was mainly about cataracts and blindness overseas and what's being done to help. I was surprised to win. I just didn't think about it after I sent it off."

Lindsay will be presented with a personal organiser and a National Council for the training of Journalists training package tomorrow.

Sight Savers International is the UK's leading charity dedicated to preventing and curing blindness in the developing world.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.