FIFTEEN minutes of fame have arrived for a Lancaster University student whose face features in a new BT advertising campaign.

Posters of Stuart King have gone up in phone boxes all over the country after the 21-year-old won a national search for "real people" to star in a payphones' advertising campaign.

Pictures of Stuart, currently studying law at Lancaster, are also to appear on thousands of special edition BT Phonecards being released this month. Stuart beat off competition from thousands of entries to win the BT Payphones' Kiosk Catwalk competition.

Stuart, a keen swimmer from North Wales, also won a £1,000 prize and said: "I'm really over the moon that I won. I didn't think I ever stood a chance. I only entered because it looked fun and eventually ended up in London being picked up in a limousine and being professionally photographed."

He added: "I've been spotted in phone boxes in Bowerham and Moorlands and I've had friends in Ilkley and Cardiff call me to say they've seen my face on the posters. It's a bit weird seeing your face all over the place. I just hope people don't go around drawing on things like a moustache."

Malcolm Newing, BT Payphones' director said: "Our customers come first and because we wanted the BT Payphones campaign to be truly representative of them, we were searching for real people rather than models. Stuart was one of twelve winners in all, reflecting a real cross section of society."

"Competition was very tough but Stuart had just the kind of enthusiastic personality we were looking for. Now we'll be able to see his smiling face in thousands of phone boxes across the country."

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