A bursary to help a student embarking on a career in journalism has been awarded for the third time.

The £500 grant in memory of former Royston Crow editor Fred Sillence, who died in August 1999, went to Carla Challis of Isleham, Cambridgeshire, who started the one-year National Council for the Training of Journalists pre-entry course at Harlow College in Essex this month.

Carla, (20), has been working as a unit secretary with the BBC Popular Features Unit for more than a year.

She will join Archant Anglia as a trainee reporter when her course finishes next June.

Archant Anglia Herts & Essex managing editor Mike Almond said: “Fred cared passionately about journalism.

“This bursary is our way of saying thank you for being an inspiration and for helping so many young people start their careers.”

Fred was editor of the Archant-owned Crow from 1965 to 1981.

Journalism was such a large part of his life that he marked his retirement in 1981 by telling colleagues: “I’d choose the same career if I had my time again.”

Catherine Bell, winner of the second Fred Sillence Bursary, joined Archant Anglia in June after completing her one-year pre-entry course at Harlow and is now a trainee reporter with the Hunts Post at Huntingdon.