There were more than 50 entries to last year's Creative Writing competition, run by the Medway Messenger and the University of Kent.

Iris Fisher of Ware Street, Bearsted, won third prize with her story, Ancient History.

Read it below or click the link above to hear the story read by KMFM newsreader Helen Richardson.

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In the old days, simply eons ago all women were born with wings on their backs, at first tiny, and then growing into the lightest, prettiest of wings: transparent, multicoloured, each set unique - like the fingerprints that men had and women envied.

The wings were hopelessly impractical really. Almost no use at all. For instance, they could only be used on really windy days and then only if a woman happened to be at the top of a steep hill when a good downhill run might - with a lot of exhausting wing flapping - get the lucky one a few inches off the ground, but most of the time the weather in those far off days was just perfect.

And there were only a few hills in out of the way places because throughout the galaxy the earth was famous for its flatness.

The men were to blame, of course, they always are. Human beings had progressed, as they do, until most people lived in bungalows - perfect homes you might think. But then one of the men had a brainstorm and added a storey or two to the bungalows, then a storey or four until in the end there were skyscrapers all over the place. Well, we women weren’t slow to seize the opportunity to use the roofs of those tall structures as runways or, where space was limited, jumping off points, persisting in our efforts to use our wings, despite some pretty disastrous attempts.

No one is quite sure which woman was the first to make a really successful lift-off but it was probably Auriel Shaw, the girl who made the first non stop winging across the Atlantica, you know. But whatever the truth of the matter it’s an undisputed fact that she was the first successful winger. Being an enterprising girl with an eye to the future, she made sure that the press was there in force on that day, cameras clicking furiously as they took pictures of the famous event. If she was nervous Auriel didn’t show it.

Wearing trousers (shockingly forward at that time) a short leather jacket with stylish slits in the back cunningly cut to give maximum freedom of wing movement, goggles to protect her eyes and a yellow helmet covering her blonde curls, she was ready; prettier than ever, outshone only be her wings, beautiful they were. So at the very top of the tallest building on the planet she gave a short speech, saying she was doing this for womankind; smiled, waved, stepped up onto the safety parapet, turned to wave again - and slipped.

How the onlookers screamed! Auriel spread her arms and desperately flapped her wings which tried, really they did, but the poor girl kept plummeting towards what seemed to be certain death.

Everyone was horrified as they watched helplessly, unable to do anything. Then suddenly Auriel stretched her arms above her head just as if she were in a swimming pool surfacing after a dive, and those wings flapped harder than ever. And it worked. The headlong plunge stopped immediately and turned into a gentle glide. Auriel had the hang of it now.

Flapping her wings almost lazily she twice winged her way around the building before landing triumphantly on the toe of her right foot, her left leg tucked gracefully behind the other, just like a ballerina. You can imagine the excitement, the applause. After that the flood, as they say.

No-one knows why women stopped growing wings. It started to happen when the earth went potty with upheavals everywhere. Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting - it seemed like the end of the world. The earth heaved and shuddered. Valleys, mountains, glades appeared and life changed because the buildings collapsed and civilisation ended for a long time. In its place came nomads, cavemen, tent dwellers, mud huts - and wingless women with fingerprints just like the men.

Well now we’ve progressed until today we’ve almost come full circle. The men learned how to build again so that for centuries we’ve been living in cottages, houses and bungalows. But you know what men are like. They never can leave well alone and over the last hundred years they’ve worked out how to erect multi-storeyed buildings just as high as the ones built all those years ago. And do you know what I’ve heard? No? Well, there have been quite a few reports recently of small wings growing on the backs of baby girls born without fingerprints.

• For details on how to enter this year's Creative Writing Awardsclick here