VETERAN peace campaigner Bruce Kent (pictured) took up another cause when he spoke at Burnley May Day festival -- the plight of pensioners.

In an attack on Britain's treatment of the elderly, he said payments to OAPs here were the meanest in Europe apart from in Portugal, and many pensioners were now retiring to the Republic of Ireland to improve their standard of living.

Mr Kent, a former Stonyhurst College student who is known for his CND campaigning, said: "What pensioners get is exactly half the minimum wage. We should all be ashamed of it. We are a wealthy country who spent one billion pounds on the Dome and one billion a year on four nuclear submarines.

"If we judge society on the way it deals with the elderly, children, the sick and prisoners, then on all those grounds we fail very badly." Thousands of people were at Towneley Park for the event, organised by a sub-committee of Burnley Trades Unions Council.

Another guest speaker was Liz Davies, a member of the Labour Party's national executive committee. She talked about the rights of women in the new millennium. Burnley MP Peter Pike and Pendle MP Gordon Prentice were also there and spoke about the need for the government to help manufacturing industry hit by redundancies both nationally and locally.

There had been fears last week that the event could be a washout due to parts of the field becoming waterlogged by heavy rain, but the sun shone on the festival after all and the decision to go ahead proved the right one, with crowds flocking to the park for an afternoon of free fun.

The traditional festival parade from the town hall to the park featured two bands and a children's roadshow, with give-away goodies handed out to onlookers on route.