DESPITE being the bookies' favourite, former Hanley Castle schoolboy David Mitchell missed out on this year's £50,000 Man Booker Prize.

At an awards ceremony in London on Tuesday, his shotlisted novel Cloud Atlas lost out to Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty.

Mr Mitchell, 35, who was raised in Hanley Swan, Upton and Malvern Wells, also made the shortlist with his second novel Number9dream three years ago.

Although his family still lives in Malvern Wells, Mr Mitchell now lives in Ireland with his wife and two-year-old daughter.