THE snooker player who captured the hearts of the nation with his upside-down glasses today focused his attention on collecting on specs to help the Third World.

Dennis Taylor puts his memorable 1985 World Championship win on the final black against Steve Davis almost entirely down to the glasses that earned him the nickname Joe 90.

The distinctive eyewear, made for him two years before the final, helped him become one of the country's most famous spectacle wearers and have led him to front a Help the Aged campaign to encourage people to donate their old pairs to charity.

Dennis, who used to play at a number of snooker clubs in the Blackburn and Burnley areas, said: "Some people used to call me Joe 90 and others said I looked like the front end of a Ford Cortina.

"I have always worn glasses, and I used to have to take my glasses off to play, which seems unbelievable now. When I had this new pair that looked like they were upside down, it meant I was on a level playing field with the other players.

"I would never have won the World Championship without them. I got them in 1983 and two years later, I had won it."

The glasses were made specially for him in 1983, to correct an astigmatism which meant he saw snooker balls in the shape of rugby balls.

Normal glasses were no good for the angle he needed, and contact lenses did not work, but once he had the unique glasses, there was no stopping him.

It was a long way from the schoolboy who had to wear round National Health Service spectacles with a lens that kept falling out. "Because of the problem with my eyes, I couldn't get on with contact lenses. I didn't realise how much of a difference my glasses would make to people.

"I used to have a little boy who came to visit me at the Assembly Rooms in Derby. He had hated his glasses so much, he had buried them in the garden.

"But once he had seen me, he wanted to wear glasses. His father dug up the garden, but couldn't find them, so they had to get him some more."

Dennis, now a commentator for the BBC, and currently taking part in a roadshow to promote the Embassy World Championship to clubs around the country, admits his glasses have been the butt of jokes.

"I have been told all sorts of things about them. There was a trend for a number of snooker players to get similar ones. I remember Ray Reardon did. I have had lots of different pairs, in all different colours. But they were vital for me, although I could never have worn them normally. For a start, my family wouldn't let me out in the street wearing them. But they helped me win the championship."

Today he wears what he calls "trendy" small, round glasses, but still uses the distinctive ones to play in.

His fondness for glasses made him the ideal frontman for the Help the Aged appeal to encourage people to hand over their old pairs to the Third World.

He said: "I am quite happy wearing glasses and they have become a trademark for me.

"There are so many pairs of glasses lying about in people's houses. It is such a small thing to do, to donate them, and they are just going to waste in people's draws."

He was handing over several pairs at Blackburn's Help the Aged shop in Northgate yesterday, as part of the World in Sight campaign.

But they weren't be the special World Championship ones - those are kept safely at home.

"I am hanging on to the original ones that won me the title. I won't let those go."

Unwanted pairs of glasses can be donated to the World in Sight Campaign by dropping them into your local Dollond & Aitchison branch or your Help the Aged shop. Or you can wrap them and post them to World in Sight Appeal, Freepost Lon13109, London N1 9BR.