A schoolgirl from Folkestone received an out of this world experience with Britain's first astronaut, after placing in a competition.

Phoebe Hampton, nine, is celebrating after being named runner up in the Spirograph Young Designer of the Year Awards.

The announcement was made during a ceremony in London, by one of the UK’s most famous female pioneers Helen Sharman.

The search for the UK’s Spirograph Young Designer of the Year began back in January and involved children being asked to create a night sky or space picture inspired by the shapes and patterns created with Spirograph.

Pictures were the judged by a panel including team members from the distributor of heritage creative toy, Flair PLC and also by Helen Sharman herself.

After much deliberation Phoebe’s creation, called Out of This World was chosen as runner up in the eight and over’ category. Her certificate, prize and a trophy were presented to her at the ceremony by Helen, giving her the chance to meet and talk to real spaceperson.

Speaking of the award, Phoebe said: "When I entered the competition I just did it for fun, I never knew I was going to get to meet a famous astronaut!

"I found Helen’s talk very interesting and inspirational. I had a lovely day and really enjoyed the afternoon tea.”

The astronaut, who also has an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent, said: “I loved Spirograph when I was young and with this year’s theme I was delighted to be involved. We had lots of entries and it’s really good to see how the children interpreted the space and night sky theme. We chose Phoebe’s picture because it had a different feel to all the others and for the way that the different colours of the planets have been incorporated. It even showed the Earth’s moon! Well done Phoebe!”

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