BLACKBURN Mayor Coun Maureen Bateson, came face to face with a famous counterpart at Granada Studios, Manchester.

Coronation Street's most famous grocer and last year's Mayor of Weatherfield Brian Mosley , known to fans as Alf Roberts, helped launch a Blackburn event at the studios as part of the borough's Celebration '96 festivities.

Visitors to Granada will see an exhibition about Blackburn and have the chance to enter a competition to win a weekend at the Moat House Hotel, Blackburn, or the Heron Hotel on the West Pennine Moors.

Coun Bateson and Mayoress Margery Caville, also took along Mrs Pauline Aspin who 'bought' a day of shadowing the Mayor in a Christian Aid charity auction.

Pauline, of Bold Street, Accrington, said: "Coming to the studios is a real surprise, it's wonderful."

To make the day extra special, Darwen Morris dancers turned out to give a display at the end of the street, just next to the Rovers Return.

Coun Bateson hoped the Blackburn event would tempt people to make the short trip from Manchester to see what the borough has to offer.

"Blackburn is a really great place and I want people to see it for themselves," she said.

Brian Mosley toured the exhibition and posed for pictures with the civic party and the morris dancers.

He also recalled visiting the borough as a young actor - when he played a small part in the sixties film A Kind of Loving.

Another celebrity, Ewood legend Ronnie Clayton, is also planning to visit the exhibition which finishes tomorrow (Sunday, April 28).

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