ASK anyone to describe your average Morris Dancer and they will doubtless come up with a picture of Morris Men bearing their usual hankies, sticks, musical instruments, bells, colourful hats and ribbons.

Not so with the Marionettes - a Morris Dancing troupe with members from Atherton and Tyldesley. For the Marionettes are strictly female Morris dancers - perhaps more closely related to the cheer leaders of the United States rather than the Morris dancers of the turn of the century Middle England.

The Industrial Revolution took its toll of the Morris dance, an English folk dance, so much so that it was practised only by, what some historians have described as, ale drinking pensioners in the lesser sophisticated villages of the English Midlands!

But this can hardly be said of the Marionettes - a young and vibrant body of female dancers who weekly floor most of the competition in the North-west.

Female Morris dancing has only been around for about 50 years, and is only popular in the North of England and North Wales.

The Marionettes troupe has been going for about 30 years and was started by Marion Fletcher, now retired, who gaveher name to the troupe. Marion had seen Morris dancing in Wales and her daughter got involved. When she moved to the North West she started up a troupe so that her daughter would have somewhere to dance. Marion made the dresses, trained the dancers and looked after the troupe. Todays dancers are looked after by a committee of 12, consisting of mums, dads and the odd grandparent.

Lesley Aldred, chairperson of the Marionettes committee, explained: "There are approximately 72 dancers in all. We have five troupes: the Marionettes Babies aged 3-6 years old; the Dinkies aged 6-9; the Tiny's aged 9-11; the Juniors aged 11-15, and finally the Seniors who can be any age over 15. The average age of the Seniors is 19-20 years.

Jackie Bowdler, 51, a committee member remembers the early days: "When we first started, the Seniors used to practice at Boothstown Community centre, and the others at what was Hindsford community centre - now closed. Nowadays, all five troupes practice at Fred Longworth High School every Tuesday evening from 7-9 pm."

Jackie Bowdler trains the Babies and Dinkies, helped by Eileen Green, Julie Scott trains the Tinies and the Seniors - the latter with the aid of Lesley Aldred, while Lesley trains the Juniors.

The youngest troupe member is Emily Bibby, aged just 2, and the eldest is 21-year-old Tracy Mulligan. The longest serving dancer Louise Aldred has been with the troupe for 16 years, she started at the age of 3 and is still dancing!.

"There is normally a competition every Sunday during the season, which is from February to October," Lesley said, "We go all over the North-west and usually our dancers are represented in the first three places."

The work required for cleaning 72 outfits weekly can be pretty daunting, so the task is shared and various mothers.

The Marionettes travel to competitions in a second-hand double decker bus painted in their colours. Not only was it expensive, but annual running costs are extremely high. Any repairs can make a fair sized dent in the troupe's funds. It has been driven for the past seven years by Chris Wilks.

"Normally we are very successful in the Championships", said Lesley, and you will usually find our Seniors coming first virtually every year.

Last September at Pontins the Babies won the annual championships of the North of England Morris Dancing Carnival Organisation (NEMDCO). They also won the Troop of the Year award with opposition from all over the North-west. The Dinkies, Tinies and Juniors all came second in that same championship.

The Seniors however, for the first time in years, came nowhere - due to the fact that, this year five of the Seniors had left shortly before the competition, which completely ruined the dance sequence.

However, this year the dancers will be back on form, and another Seniors' win is anticipated.

Treasurer, Bill Green, emphasised that finding funds was a major headache. "If we stopped fundraising the whole troupe would collapse, we have no sponsors at all. We have attempted to obtain Lottery funds but without success. Rent for the practice rooms alone costsaround £225 per month," he explained.

"We provide all the dresses which are made by a local dressmaker and cost around £45 each. They are paid for by the troupe, although the child's parents make a ontribution of around £5 towards the cost. We have just had to pay out £5,000 for new dresses for this year's championship. As you can imagine, this took us a long time to raise and our bank account is now looking rather sick!

Other funds are raised by car boot sales, Easter egg and Christmas bingo, bag packing at the local supermarkets, and sponsored dances.

Bill continued: "It is the bus that is our major worry, if it breaks down then we wouldn't be able to carry on. At the moment we are deeply indebted to Mr Fisher of J. Fishers Haulage of Chanters Estate. Through his generosity we have somewhere secure to park our bus during the week. He also tries to help out with little repairs. If a garage somewhere could offer us a service once in a while it would help tremendously.

"We are desperate for sponsors, and if anyone does feel that they can offer us sponsorship, then we are quite willing to put their name on our bus. It is seen all over the county virtually every weekend, and is the ideal for advertising."

Anyone interested in providing some form of sponsorship, or wanting to join the troupe - they are always looking for new members - is asked to contact Lesley Aldred or Bill Green on telephone no's 01942 874641 or 01942 878707 respectively.