IT'S hardly the South of France but it seems sun worshippers are flocking to the Ribble Valley.... to strip off!

As we uncover in today's paper, the valley is the setting for the Ribble Valley Club, a thriving community of all types of people who see nothing wrong in shedding their clothes and getting back to nature. As our (fully clothed) reporter Patricia Hall discovered, these people are not freaks or voyeurs, they are ordinary people of all ages from shopkeepers to solicitors.

As one uninhibited holidaymaker said: "It doesn't matter whether you are a millionaire or a road sweeper - without clothes we are all on the same level."

Well, good luck to them! If they can grin and bare it despite all the British weather can throw at them, they deserve a medal.

But lest we get too carried away, a word of caution. Nudism is something that should only be practised between consenting adults, preferably behind a very high fence!

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