OPERA singers from music colleges across the country descended on Blackburn for the annual Kathleen Ferrier Society singing competition.

The young hopefuls gathered at King George's Hall for the chance to walk away with the society's £3,000 bursary.

The bursary competition has been running for six years and the seventh was hotly contested with the competition running late into lastoo night.

Kathleen Ferrier was an operatic singer who was renowned around the world for her music abilities.

She was born in Higher Walton, Preston, in 1912 and worked on Blackburn's telephone exchange before pursuing a music career.

She died aged 41 in 1953.The society was formed in 1993 after two Kathleen Ferrier fans decided to commemorate the 40th anniversary of her death.