Sex Please Were British

THE organiser of this year's Bournemouth Literary Festival has said that the town's "stuffy" reputation is a thing of the past - and has created an erotic fiction workshop this weekend to prove it.

Lillian Avon, a playwright from Boscombe, has called in erotica guru Mitzi Szereto to help run the writing masterclass and party as part of the festival.

The workshop has captured the imagination of dozens of amateur writers from across the country, as well as the commissioning editor of Channel 4 Talent, Catherine Bray, who will be attending.

And Lillian said that those who had already signed up for a place on the workshop, to be held at Bournemouth University , included a handful of pensioners.

"Bournemouth has had a stuffy reputation. When I was at school in the 1970s, perhaps it was like that," she said.

"But now the town has changed. There is a whole mix of people here."