TAKE one reporter, add the largest fancy dress shop in Lancashire and what have you got? Hannibal Lecter, Maid Marion, a ringmaster and a Bay City Rollers groupie!

If you have ever had a burning ambition to be someone else, to shake off your identity and adopt a new persona, then a quick trip to Talk of The Town, in Padiham, and all your dreams can come true.

Owner Margaret Clough started the business after going on holiday to Newquay and seeing a fancy dress shop packed out with people. When she came back home, a friend suggested she have a go so Margaret started off with about 10 outfits outside her shop in Burnley Road.

"That Christmas all of the outfits were hired out and the business took off from there," she said.

Talk of The Town moved into the former weavers' institute and now, 12 years on, it boasts more than 2,000 different outfits.

Margaret runs a second-hand shop which helps to fund the fancy dress business during slow months, but at Christmas, New Year and Hallowe'en, Janet Barrett - Margaret's daughter and fancy dress shop manager - is run off her feet.

The front counter and changing rooms hide rail after rail of clothes, hundreds of hats, wigs, accessories, jewellery and shoes. Rubber face masks are a fairly new addition which enable the wearer to not only dress like a character but look like them too. The latest Batman mask outfit - complete with his arch enemies, Penguin and The Joker - and the Flintstone family always prove a big hit.

But one which is rarely hired is the frighteningly realistic Hannibal Lecter mask from the gripping thriller Silence of the Lambs.

Janet said: "We try to meet the needs of customers, whatever they want. We once got a call from Marks and Spencer for 12 identical clown costumes and, because they gave us enough time, we were able to make them.

"When someone comes in we can usually tell exactly what will suit them and no matter how many outfits they try on they usually go back to the first one we suggested."

Besides managing the business, Janet also gets out the needle and thread to make costumes. She said: "People who come here and hire costumes always come back to hire more because we have the widest range and are one of the cheapest in Lancashire."

Talk of The Town has has a few ups and downs, especially when three prized teddy boy outfits were stolen and a Mr Blobby outfit was hired and never returned.

Margaret said: "Some people think this is an easy business and set up solely hiring out costumes, but there isn't really enough trade in fancy dress all year round and many of our outfits have been bought from other fancy dress shops who have closed down."

People come to the shop from as far away as Manchester, Liverpool and Blackburn.

The shop has four dozen Father Christmases and a similar number of Mother Christmases to cope with the festive season and good selection of kilts for Hogmanay.

So if you want a change of image, pop along to Padiham and you could be the talk of the town!

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