A FORMER Commonwealth Games athlete paid a visit to Darlington library to reward children who had taken part in a writing competition.

Retired track and field star Joy Grieveson, who won a silver medal at the 1962 European Championships, visited Crown Street Library on Monday (August 11), to hand out prizes to youngsters.

A competition had been held in the run up to Glasgow 2014, with participants invited to write a story or poem about the Commonwealth Games.

In bronze was Kaysan Axam-McArdle and in silver was Jamie Crook, who was away on holiday, and Eve Banham won gold.

Her winning poem contained the line: ‘Everlasting cheers / Sound blasting my ears’.

Sophie Armstrong also won a prize for the best quiz about the Commonwealth games.

The library has hosted a lot of community events lately, with creative writing classes taking place every Wednesday and drawing classes.

Ms Grieveson said she got involved with the library through her daughter’s cousin, who works at the library.

She ran in her last two years at school before joining the Darlington Harriers, her local athletics club. After competing in the Commonwealth games and the Olympics, Ms Grieveson went over to America with Dorothy Hyman, a sprint athlete from Yorkshire, to try and promote female athletics.

She was involved in indoor athletics there, which was fairly new at the time.

Ms Grieveson said athletics was 'very different' while she was competing, as there was 'no money' in the sport compared to today.