PRINCE Charles made his first public outing today since the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales - to have lunch with a Blackburn cancer sufferer.

Brian Haynes, of Mill Hill, and his wife Marjorie, met the Prince during a fund-raising visit to Manchester for the Macmillan Fund.

Brian told the Citizen: "He asked to be introduced to a sufferer, and they chose me.

"I'd known about it for a while, but with the recent tragedy surrounding his ex-wife I played it down a bit."

Ex-policeman Brian was chosen by the charity in recognition of his fund-raising efforts to pay for a Macmillan nurse in Blackburn.

In an effort to raise the £5,000 needed, he and his friends staged cream cracker-eating contests, marathon swims, and go -karting. An abseil planned for last week would have taken them past the £5,000 mark but Brian had to cancel when his health took a turn for the worse.

He said: "My nurse has been a godsend, both for me and my family, and I think Blackburn deserves as many as it can get.

"I was very disappointed that we didn't reach our target but we're just going to carry right on and raise as much as we can."

Brian is still raising funds for a Blackburn nurse. He is currently on the look-out for people and organisations who could donate raffle prizes or sell tickets for his next fund-raising evening, to be held to the Swallow Hotel on November 1.

Anyone who is willing to help should ring Brian on 671822.

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