Thursday November 13, 2014, The Gazette 3

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Lauren claimed the top spot with her rendition of No One by Alicia Keys.

She said: “It went really well and I was very happy with it. As soon as I finished, I wanted to go back on.

“There were a lot of peo-ple, but when I got up there I didn’t care. People in the crowd were swaying their arms like they were at a festival.

“Although, just before I went on, I got this really hor-rible feeling in my belly, like a giant butterfly.”

The teenager now hopes to forge a career in the music business.

She said: “It’s definitely something I’d like to do when I get older.

“I’ve only been playing the guitar for about a year and I taught myself, so I’ll keep practising that.

Opportunity

“This is such an amazing opportunity. Hopefully, it will lead to other things.

“I’ll wait to see if anyone gets in touch with me.

“I’ve certainly got a lot more followers now – plenty of people have been tagging me on Instagram.”

Lauren’s mother, Clair Bolister, said: “We are all so proud of Lauren. We’re over the moon.

“She’s such a brilliant singer and she was really ex-cited about it.

“We all went down to watch her – grandparents, great-grandparents…”

Jonathan Taylor, headteacher at North Bridge House Senior School and Sixth Form, Canonbury, said: “We are delighted that Lauren’s talent and hard work have been rewarded with this great opportunity. Without question, she lit up Oxford Street.”

Teen wows crowd at Christmas switch-onLauren shares stage with X Factor’s Cheryl

A Canonbury schoolgirl sang to a crowd of thousands when she joined X Factor judge Cheryl Fernandez-Versini for the Oxford Street Christmas lights switch-on.

Lauren Mae Kidd, 16, a pu-pil at North Bridge House in Canonbury Place, performed festive song Oh Holy Night to rapturous applause at the gala event on Thursday, alongside boy band Rixton and singer-songwriter Jess Glynne.

The gig came about as the result of winning a talent competition – entrants had to upload a song to Facebook and the one to receive the most “likes” was the winner.

by Jon Deanjon.dean@archant.co.uk

� Oxford Street’s ‘Talent Starts Here’ competition winner Lauren Mae Kidd performs at the Christmas lights switch-on Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/ PA Wire/Press Association Images

Council seeks improvement in GP accessA raft of new measures to make it easier for patients to see Islington doctors have been put forward by town hall health chiefs.

Plans include longer sur-gery opening hours – includ-ing evenings and weekends – online appointment booking and letting nurses sign sick notes for school and work.

The proposals are the re-sult of almost three years’ work by Islington Council’s health scrutiny committee.

Martin Klute, chairman of the committee, said: “This came from anecdotal evi-dence that people were strug-gling to get appointments with their GP. The strong feeling among committee members was that this was probably true.

“I think these measures could do a lot. What’s clear is that there is not one clear so-lution, but a number of dif-ferent things we can do to help the situation… like making sure there are enough staff on at crucial times and allowing people to book appointments six weeks in advance.”

The plans will now go be-fore the council’s executive, then a meeting of the full council for final approval.

Petition fights flats proposalAlmost 100 people have signed a petition opposing a plan to build flats on a car park in Holloway.

The building, on the Ben-nett Court Estate, off Axmin-ster Road, would contain one two-bedroom and one four-bedroom properties intended for social housing.

Despite objections over light, privacy and over-crowding, an Islington Coun-cil planning committee unanimously approved the plans on Thursday last week.

� Lauren Mae Kidd Picture: Ian West/PA

� Cheryl Fernandez-Versini with Lisa Snowdon, right, and Dave Berry Picture: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire/Press Association Images