BLACKBURN schoolgirl Rachel Cotton enjoyed a VIP trip to London as part of a national competition run by the Disney Channel.

Rachel, 13, was among 17 winners in the cable television station's Incredible Story Studio competition which involved more than 4,000 schools across the UK.

Children were asked to write a short story and let their imaginations run wild. Of the 17 winning entries, four are to be made into dramas for the channel, five will be animated, eight uploaded onto the Disney website. All will feature in the national Young Writer's magazine.

Rachel's story David and Goliath will be featured on the website which can be found at www.disney.co.uk/incredible.

As part of the prize Rachel, of Moorside Avenue, Blackburn, joined the other 16 winners at the channel's studios in St John's Wood, London, yesterday to meet celebrity cartoonist Gerald Scarfe, Disney presenters and animators and characters from Disney's Toy Story 2 film --pictured with Rachel. Rachel, who attend's Our Lady and St John High School, Blackburn, was also interviewed live on the Disney Channel.

She said: "I am over the moon as I have always wanted to see inside a TV studio and as it's the Disney studio it's even better.

"I still can't believe it's happening to me."

Mum Jane, a computer inputter at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph, said: "We are all excited for Rachel. Her face was a picture when she heard she'd won and was going to London to receive her prize. She put a lot of hard work into the story over a number of days and deserves the recognition."

Rachel, who lives with her mum, dad Simon and sister Jessica, 10, enjoys singing and acting and has taken parts in many productions at the North Road school.

Her story, David and Goliath, is about an 11-year-old boy and his pals who fight against the building of a shopping centre near their home.