"IT'S never too late to learn" is the clear message being delivered next week.

Bury is joining towns and cities across the land to take part in Adult Learners Week.

It's the seventh annual celebration organised by NIACE, the national organisation for adult learning.

Colleges, libraries, businesses and trade unions are all helping to promote the wealth of courses on offer, which people can take up to improve their job skills or simply for the pleasure of learning.

They say now is the time to start, if you want to learn French, work a computer or make a complete career change.

With people living longer, helping pensioners make the most of their retirement is high on the agenda. Surveys show that 47 per cent of people over 60 have done some kind of learning over the last three years, compared with 74 per cent for younger people.

Bury is bringing a countryside art form into the town centre next week.

Local shoppers are being given the chance to try their hand at the ancient art of well-dressing as part of Adult Learners Week.

Five tableaux are being set up in Kay Gardens, demonstrating the stages and the final version of a picture in flowers, of the kind more commonly seen in a quaint Derbyshire village.

Bury's community education service won funds for the event after winning a competition run by the National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education.

Mr David Norris, Bury's adult education co-ordinator, said: "Well-dressing is very much associated with the countryside but this is a golden opportunity to bring the beauty and craftsmanship involved into an urban environment.

"At the same time, the event will serve to highlight the variety and depth of the adult education classes that are run around the borough."

Next Wednesday (May 20) and Friday (May 22), the five tableaux will be on display. The first will show how the well-dressing exercise starts and each successive stage of its development will be depicted.

On two of the displays, passers-by can have a go and press flowers into place.

Coun David Ryder, education chairman, said: "I am sure the project will provide an interesting and colour addition to the town centre and hopefully we will be able to make use of the five tableaux in future years to highlight adult education classes in our other town centres on Radcliffe, Prestwich, Whitefield, Tottington and Ramsbottom."

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