CALLING all budding songwriters and poets - the Blackburn Festival of Poetry and Songwriting is under threat as the low number of entrants means it may have to be cancelled.

Fledgling John Lennons and Roger McGoughs are being invited to write songs and poems for the festival, with the main theme being the seaside, and enter them into the competition. The finalists will then be notified and have the choice of either performing their work at the festival concert or having someone perform it for them.

However, the poor response to the competition may see it abandoned.

"We were hoping to make this an annual event," said one of the organisers, Brian Woods.

"But if we don't get a lot more entries soon, we will have to cancel it. The response has been fairly poor - lots of people requested application forms, but hardly any have been sent back - and out of those that were, only one was from Blackburn.

"It would be a shame to cancel it, as it is a great opportunity to raise money for the Superscan Appeal and experience some of the area's lyrical talent."

Prizes for the winners and runners up include a day recording with a professional sound engineer, trophies, and prizes from the event's different sponsors.

Songs should be entered on a tape with a lyric sheet attached.

A maximum of two poems or songs can be entered. Poems should be no more than 30 lines long, and songs no more than 4 minutes long. They should be sent, along with £5 entrance fee for the first poem or song, £2 for the second, to BFPS, c/o King Georges Hall, Blackburn BB2 1AA. The closing date for the competition is June 24, and all money raised will go to the Superscan Appeal.

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