Dacorum blogger wins Rising Star Award at The Golden Chopsticks Awards

A former Hemel Gazette journalist has won an award at The Golden Chopsticks Awards.

Blogger Afra Willmore, from Aldbury, won the Rising Star Award for her writing about the food and experience at Jin Li in London' s Chinatown.

The mum of seven left The Gazette when her third son was born - he is now 22 - and started writing a blog - madmumof7 - about her family, lifestyle, travel and food.

She said: "I started a blog after being a print journalist for many years, I wanted to produce more creative content, and that led me to the blog.

"At first the blog was about my family and the things we would do and places we would go, over the years it has changed and now also involves travel and food.

"That's how I got invited to Jin Li in London, we had to write about our experience, this was before the pandemic so I forgot all about it.

"A couple of weeks ago, I received an invite to the awards night and then just before the awards I found out I was shortlisted, but I still didn't think I would win, I was just going for a night out and my son was coming with me.

"I couldn't believe it when they said I had won, I was shocked!

"It's nice to have my writing recognised in this industry.

"They apparently decided that my writing demonstrated passion, flair and humour and I was worthy of being named Rising Star.

"I also got to meet Gok Wan and he was a lovely guy, he is really passionate about the Asian food industry."

The Golden Chopsticks Awards, founded by Gok Wan, honour the stars of the East and West Asian food industry across the UK.

Afra also recently started a new food and drink blog - The Eat Sheets.