A BATTLE of the shoppers ended in tears at Colne’s Asda supermarket, as customers jammed into the store in a mad scramble for any sugar in sight.

They were knocking each other out of the way during the great sugar race and checkout girls fled as customers shouted abuse.

Panic buying set in after shoppers heard that hundredweight sacks of sugar were being sold at the Burnley Road store, though there were only a few of these, with the rest of the delivery being weighed out into usual 2lb bags.

Those who managed to get their hands on a large sack were asked to fill out forms with the names and addresses of 16 people they would share the foodstuff with.

Manager Andrew Roberts said that as the sugar was being weighed out, the aisles had been packed solid with queues of clamouring people and warned of the danger of loss of life in such bad tempered conditions.

Sugar went on sale there at 10.30am and was all gone in less than half an hour.

The sugar shortage was also causing havoc among soft drinks manufacturers, including Hills Manufacturing Company in Wire Street, Padiham, where general manager David Hills warned that unless fresh supplies arrived in the next few days, production would come to a halt and the jobs of is 24 operatives would be in jeopardy.

Front page photo today showed Cynthia Taylor, a member of St Stephen’s Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society, Burnley, wearing a number of rings donated by drag artist Danny la Rue for a fund raising auction.

They raised £35 and a total of £280 was made at the event in the junior school for new stage curtains.

In national news, the body of a 29-year-old nanny was found in a sack in the basement of Lady Lucan’s Belgravia home in London.

She had run into the street suffering head injuries, shouting ‘murder’ and was taken to hospital in a serious condition.

Police were today trying to trace Lord Lucan to inform him of developments.