Alfie’s Story

In a secondary school setting, everything is so exam based, there’s not a lot of time for creativity in school subjects. The amazing thing that First Story does is that it gets people interested in writing again. It brings writing back down to its core of self-expression and articulating your opinion, and everyone who has gone through First Story takes that with them.
 
Before First Story I thought creative writing was a very personal thing – something that only I enjoyed doing. I didn’t realise that a lot of the people liked it or that “creative writing” was even a thing. I’ve always liked English, but without the kind of the structure of First Story, I don’t think I would have seen the importance of creative writing.
 
First Story’s impact is not just limited to creative writing either, it makes you more just coherent in general, which is very useful as I write a lot at uni now. I’m studying English Lit with Creative Writing, which is fun.
 
The thing with First Story is it improves all your writing; maybe I wouldn’t be at the uni at all without it. I think it’s been beneficial in so many areas.
 
At secondary school, Miss Alam, my English teacher (she was lovely) was like, ‘he seems to be having a good time. By the way, there’s this thing called First Story, I think you’d be great at, it do you want to come along?’. And I thought I’m gonna give it a go, because I loved writing in my spare time. Irene was my Writer-in-Residence. There were lots of people there; I made a lot of friends. We had so much control over the anthology, which was great. Little 12-year-old me was having a great time.

In Year 9, I got the opportunity to go to the Young Writers Festival in Cambridge, and to interview the author Manjit Mann with two other students, which was incredible. We had Zoom sessions where we discussed what questions we wanted to ask. We read Manjeet’s books and talked about our favourite parts. It was like a mini book club.

I can’t even tell you how amazing the festival was. I always remember after we interviewed Manjeet, everyone could line up and get their books signed and I went to go speak to her again. She was like, ‘oh, Alfie, you were so great. You were so articulate, I’ve got this feeling that you’re going to have an amazing life’ and little me was like ‘this AUTHOR just complimented me and said I was going on to do great things.’ It was such a confidence boost – Cambridge University, speaking in a massive lecture theatre in front of a bazillion people, it’s crazy! The actual interview was only 5 or 10 minutes, it was nerve wracking, but I knew I wanted to do it.

I also attended the Young Writers Residential, which is such an amazing experience because you get to meet so many like-minded people from different walks of life. For that one week you’re in this beautiful environment where nothing outside comes in and you just have the greatest time. I remember we spent all day writing and talking to each other. ‘Oh, do you want to look at this? Oh, what do you think of this? Oh, do you want to listen to this?’ It was amazing. We still talk in a group chat all these years later which shows how well it works.
 
I joined the first Young Creatives Collective (YCC) cohort just before uni. I wanted to learn as many different skills as possible and I thought ‘I’ve never done anything like this before; I’ve never planned a project’ We had a mini residential where we all met up for three days. During the residential we spoke to someone who works in data analysis. They said data tells a story. That’s the thing that people forget about the importance of stories and writing, it can be applied anywhere.

It’s about thinking ‘who are you writing for? What do they need to hear? What do I need to say?’ I still use it now. I work for Barnardo’s and I do a lot of the social media and marketing for the NHS Youth Forum. They’re such useful skills.

The YCC has been really helpful because we have been able to take the lead and say, ‘we want to do this project, I’m going to lead on this bit, this is how we’re going to do it.’ Then, ‘all right, let’s adapt our plan because this hasn’t worked. Let’s work together and cooperate’ and bringing all that together, teaches useful skills that can be implemented anywhere.

First Story is a creative writing charity, so you’d assume it’s just for creative writing, but it’s really given me so many other skills I otherwise wouldn’t have that have been quite pragmatic. I think that having a broader skill set that you can apply to any situation has been really helpful.

I still do creative work too because of First Story. In February 2026, I wrote poetry for the Bradford City of Culture’s storytelling week, which was launched in Bradford Library. They brought in some musicians who created music to go alongside the poems and used virtual reality headsets too. It toured different libraries across the Bradford district. We had to pick an area that was important to us, and I went to Cliff Castle. There’s, an old picture of this clock made out of flowers. My Granddad was the person that cultivated them and looked after them. They filmed us walking around and looking all mysterious as poets do. It was awesome and I don’t think I would have been able to do that without First Story.

First Story has been a massive confidence boost, which is the main thing that I think I’ve taken from it, because from the anthology showcase to interviewing Manjit Mann to the YCC, I think having that confidence to put yourself out there and take charge on something has really pushed me and helped me grow.