A SANDWICH shop owner in Birkenhead aims to put the perfect topping on her successful business by carrying off a coveted national title.

Paula Smith, who has run the popular takeaway Let’s Lunch in The Grange and Pyramids Shopping Centre for the past decade, has been chosen as one of seven from the North West of England to go through to the final of this year’s Sandwich Designer of the Year competition.

And she is hoping that the fantastic filling which carries her to victory in the final will be her mouth-watering roast chicken dinner sandwich, which has been wowing her own customers since she launched it last November.

When she makes it for sale at Let’s Lunch, 43-year-old Paula builds it from slices of juicy chicken, stuffing, gravy and real roast potatoes.

But she reveals that the version she will be preparing for the grand final at a swish London hotel in May will have an added ingredient which she hopes will be the secret weapon that mops up the opposition.

It was the result of a competition she ran to mark the tenth anniversary of Let’s Lunch last November that the idea for the novel roast dinner sandwich was cooked up.

Her  business has become firmly established since it opened, drawing in customers from a wide area, and Paula currently has a team of three assistants helping her to operate the takeaway six days a week supplying a wide range of sandwiches, filled jacket potatoes, toasties and home-made soup.

Paula, who lives with husband Lee and their six-year-old son Harvey in Wallasey, said: “The competition was for our customers to come up with a new sandwich with the best one being made up for sale at Let’s Lunch.

“One of my customers, Pete Walsh, suggested the roast dinner sandwich and we chose it because I’d never heard of anything like it being done before.

“I make it with lovely fresh ingredients. It can be based on chicken or turkey, or even beef or lamb.

“I then put on gravy but to bind it together and stop it being runny I add stuffing. The other key ingredient is potatoes roasted the traditional way in duck fat.

“Since I introduced it and started selling it for £2.50, the sandwich has proved very popular. In fact, one lady comes in for it three or four times a week because she enjoys it so much.

“When I decided to enter this year’s Sandwich Designer of the Year competition I knew it had to be my roast dinner one I was going to make as I reckoned no-one else would think of it.”

Paula’s strategy was correct because at the North West heat held at Tameside College in Greater Manchester she beat off stiff competition from around 20 other designers, who collectively submitted around 80 sandwich ideas, to become one of two winners in the chicken category who go forward to the final at the Lancaster Hotel, London, on May 16.

Derek Millar, Commercial Director for The Grange and Pyramids Shopping Centre, who said: “Paula’s sandwich shop business is a real success story and we were delighted to hear that she is taking it a step forward by even winning competitions.

“Her sandwiches are lovely and I know she has a terrific following so I am not surprised her entry stood out to judges.

“We all wish her every success for the London final.”

Remembering the North West heats, Paula said: “It was tough going as the competition in the heat was really excellent. Many of them were actually chefs.

“Only six people were supposed to be picked by the judges from the North West but in the end they chose an extra finalist – which was myself – as the entries were so good they couldn’t make up their minds.

“I’m now really looking forward to competing down in London. This time I’ll be up against the very best sandwich designers from all over the United Kingdom but I’m confident of success with my roast dinner sandwich.

“On the day we have half an hour to make our sandwiches. I will be doing my usual ingredients but I’ll be adding something I don’t normally use. It’s cabbage fried in bacon fat and incorporating bacon bits. It’s my secret weapon.

“I’m very much looking forward to going down to London with my husband Lee and going to the gala dinner later. If I win it will be prestige for my business.”

Last year’s Sandwich Designer of the Year was Richard Henderson of Cheddar in Somerset who won the title with a butter brioche sliced apple, raspberry and Italian marscapone toastie.

Two members of a German youth choir are to make an emotional return to the town of Llangollen this July, 60 years after they sang there as schoolgirls.

Ursel Gaussman and Inge Volkening, then both aged 14, were part of the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir which won at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in 1953 – and had an international hit with the song The Happy Wanderer.

Sixty years on the Eisteddfod have contacted the choir, now known as the Schaumburger Maerchensaenger, and invited Inge and Ursel over, accompanied by the choir’s musical director, Gudrun Wuttke.

They will take part in the opening ceremony for this year’s event, on Tuesday, July 9, the first time they have been back to the UK since 1953.

Then another visitor, the poet Dylan Thomas, described them as “pig-tailed angels” in a radio broadcast, one of his last for the BBC before his death in New York four months later.

Ursel and Inge actually met the great poet as well as the Queen and Prince Philip

Gudrun, who has been in charge of the choir for over 25 years, said proudly: “He is one of my favourite poets and we still use ‘angels with pigtails’ in our publicity.

“I have spoken to the ladies and they really want to come back to Llangollen but they wanted me to come with them because they don’t speak English.

“They appeared on a very famous German television show in September and they spoke about their memories of Llangollen and the choir performed the song – it was lovely to see Inge and Ursel singing along.”

The BBC broadcast of the choir performing The Happy Wanderer at Llangollen turned it into an international hit – it was written by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller whose sister Edith conducted the choir.

She and Florenz Siegesmund wrote the lyrics and within six months it was in the UK charts while the choir became internationally known and toured extensively.

Inge and Ursel married and had families and still live in Obernkirchen and Ursel’s son and two nieces also sang in the choir.

Gudrun added: “When you look at the amazing history of this choir you always should have in mind that Germany lost the war in 1945 and had a very difficult relationship to any other country.

“Up to the early Fifties Schaumburg was British occupation zone. The two founder ladies – Edith Möller and Erna Pielsticker – became friends with the British Relation Officer, and with his great support the amazing story begins.

“He arranged an exchange trip to England, to Ipswich, in 1950 and this contact initiated the participation in the Llangollen Musical Eisteddfod in 1953.

“For Inge and Ursel it was their second trip to Great Britain and their first to Wales and both ladies look back to this still with great excitement.

“They could hardly speak or understand any English and had never been anywhere besides Schaumburg before.

“During their stay in Llangollen they were guests of Welsh families and even the breakfast habits seemed strange for these girls.

“One day the host lady called her young guests for breakfast one morning and ‘Would you please come down for breakfast?’ Inge translated as ‘Willy, es gibt Bratwurst’ – Willy, we are going to have fried sausage’.

“But the memory of both ladies is still vivid and their experience in Llangollen is one of the most important of their lives.

“Both tell me that the choir formed their lives and they still have contacts to people from their time in the choir membership and still meet in the society of former Märchensänger.”

One person who remembers their 1953 performance vividly is former Eisteddfod Chairman Gethin Davies, then a 14-year-old schoolboy just promoted to the sought after job of usher in the Eisteddfod marquee after serving his time as a programme seller.

He said: “I had just shown someone to their eat when these children came on with a double bass and a guitar and suddenly his wonderful sound came over – it sent shivers down my back.

“When they had finished the audience was just lapping and clapping and calling for an encore but because it was a ompetition they couldn’t do one.

“The BBC had recorded it though and arlophone released it as an old-fashioned 78rpm record and it was a big hit.

“I used to listen to it on Radio Luxembourg hich was rather frowned upon by your parents but others recorded it too and hey put some awful English words to it.

“But it was an unforgettable occasion and, as Max Boyce would say, I was there.

“I loved being an usher because after showing people to their seats you could just sit down and enjoy the performances.”

Inge and Ursel are are still going strong in the small town of Obernkirchen, near Minden, in Lower Saxony, where Gudrun is in charge of three choirs from primary school age to 24.

She is also looking forward to the visit and said: “The UK is my favourite country and I have visited many times but never to Llangollen before but we are very much looking forward to it.”

Gethin Davies added: “I would be thrilled if those ladies can make the trip. It would be a real link with my childhood and the treasured memories I have of the Esteddfod.”

The Eisteddfod’s Musical Director, Eilir Owen Griffiths, said: “We are thrilled that they will be here and have made the arrangements to fly them over.

“They are a real link with the Eisteddfod’s history and with its culture and international appeal.”

To watch Inge and Ursel and the present day choir on German TV go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acowt_7fQUU and for more on the choir check out http://www.maerchensaenger.de/

To book tickets and for more details on this year’s event go to the website at www.international-eisteddfod.co.uk and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/llangollen