Spencer Wix, a mason with memorial firm F Masters in Ipswich, was awarded the WA Hoare Challenge Cup for Deisgn of the Year, the Pollock-Smith Challenge Cup for Best Lettering and the NAMM Trophy for Best Memorial in this year\'s Craftex competition.

All three Awards were given for the same piece, a Portland limestone obelisk memorial with sunflower decoration, faultlessly executed and inscribed.

Runner-up in Design of the Year and Lettering categories was Nick Hindle from H L Perfitt, memorial masons in Diss, Norfolk, and Bungay, Suffolk. His memorial was in the form of a violin carved in slate.

But Nick had his revenge. His violin sent Spencer\'s obelisk into second place for the Reg Williams Memorial Cup for Best Carving and won the Lidster Medusa Trophy for the most imaginative work.

The Craftex competition is run by the National Association of Memorial Masons (NAMM) and this year was presented at FSE (Funeral Services Exhibition) held at Stoneleigh Park, near Coventry, on 4-6 April, where NAMM and some memorial wholesalers and suppliers of memorial fixing systems exhibited alongside companies selling coffins, hearses and embalming tables.

H L Perfitt\'s Richard Bierton also did well in the Craftex Awards with his designs in slate winning the Pisani Challenge Cup for gritblast lettering, the Westmoreland Shield for Gritblast Ornamentation, the Certificate for Etching other than by Gritblasting and the Wincilate Trophy for the Best Slate Item.

Tracy Steel from H D Tribe in Sussex won the Ernest Hawley Memorial Cup for Apprentice\'s Lettering and the Crawshaw Cup for the Best Item by a Trainee.

Darren Brodie of Odlings (Hull) won the S P Richardson Award for gritblast carving.