FAMOUS people who have strong links with Blackburn and Darwen are backing the area's bid for city status.

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph has contacted well-known people ranging from sports to stars and politicians to community leaders.

During the lead up to the city bid being presented to the Government on September 1, we will publish the comments of a number of people who are backing the bid.

Today, we begin the series with Baroness Castle of Blackburn, who as the town's battling MP Barbara Castle was one of the most prominent post war politicians from the end of the war right through to the 1980s.

Speaking from her High Wycombe home she said: "Having been elected to represent Blackburn in the House of Commons in 1945 I have had a ringside seat to watch the evolution of the town from a depressed area in the immediate post-war years into an attractive, go-ahead, racially harmonious town.

"This has been made possible by the high quality of its local administration and the guts of its local citizens.

"When I became MP, Blackburn was a county borough notable for its educational expansion, housing developments and its determination to attract new commercial enterprises.

"The quality of its municipal government was recognised when in 1966 its leader George Eddie was exceptionally given a knighthood. Despite the setback it received in 1972, when an act was passed demoting it with other county boroughs to district council under the re-organisation of local government by the then government, Sir George's successes have been maintained with the high standards he introduced, and Blackburn with Darwen has given leadership to Lancashire and the North West.

"It is time its achievements were rewarded with the granting of city status."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.