A TOUCH of spice guaranteed that Red Nose Day was not just good - but really, really good!

It was a day for Spice Girl wannabes and it did not matter what sex they were.

Sam Laycock, Peter Walmsley, Karl Faulkner, Carl Yates and Peter Walsh dressed up as the five pop stars to raise cash during a fashion show and concert at St Peter's Primary School, Darwen.

But they were not the only ones donning fancy dress for Red Nose Day.

Stagecoach bus driver Richard Tapper kept his Blackburn passengers smiling by dressing up as a clown for the day.

Thousands of people from East Lancashire joined in the fun and antics in an effort to help beat the previous total of more than £20 million set two years ago.

Many ingenious fund-raising activities were used, which included the sale of some mouthwatering treats with a difference.

Chefs at Blakey's Cafe Bar, Blackburn, dreamed up a special Red Nose Butty, complete with a tomato designed to look like a crimson hooter. Nine-year-old Harriet Pomfret, of Mellor, baked 200 biscuits decorated with cherries as red noses to sell to her classmates at Balderstones CE Primary School.

Determined to make the day go with a bang, pupils at Churchill House Day Nursery, Little Harwood, staged a balloon race to raise cash.

Elsewhere it was a time for pranksters - staff at Old Gate Nursing Home, Livesey Branch Road, Blackburn, staged a sponsored kidnap of matron Mrs Marjorie Wright for an hour.

Nothing could escape the infectious fun of Red Nose Day.

The Lightning Aircraft outside British Aerospace, Samlesbury, had a nose job when staff gave it the full treatment with red hooter on its nose cone.

But, whatever the event, thousands of pounds was raised for charity on the only day of the year everyone can make fools of themselves and still get away with it.

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