Young poets were given a taste of life as journalists during a visit to the head office of the EDP.

The two winners of the recent EDP and Briar Chemicals Young Poets of the Year competition spent the morning at Prospect House, in Norwich, as part of their prize, along with some of their schoolmates. Abigail Clarke, from Mile Cross Primary, won the 8-9 age category, and Darcy Tomlinson, of Taverham Junior School, came out top in the 10-11 category. The other pupils who joined them for the tour were David Sadd and Ruby MacBeath, both from Mile Cross, and Samira Mirza, Luke Harrison and Laini Dekeyzer, from Taverham Juniors. During their visit the pupils learned about the history of EDP and, in the paper's library, were shown the very first edition of the paper, published in 1870. They learned how the process of reporting the news has evolved from those early years to today's multi-media world of websites and social media. The children also greatly enjoyed looking around the studio of Mustard TV, which was launched on Freeview by Archant, publisher of the EDP, earlier this year.

Abigail said: 'The day was brilliant. We were able to look at some really old newspapers – it was amazing to see how they have changed!'Mile Cross Primary head teacher Stuart Allen said: 'Any opportunity to get children writing more often can only be a good thing, which is exactly what this competition has enabled all of our children to do.'

This year's poetry competition reached its climax earlier this month with a presentation to the winners and runners-up at The Forum in Norwich. Abigail and Darcy each won £100 and their schools were presented with cheques for £500, all courtesy of Briar Chemicals, who also donated £500 to Autism Anglia, the charity nominated by the competition's main judge, Tom Blofeld, from the BeWiLDerwood adventure park.