A NUDIST protester from Tyldesley wants everyone in the country to join him in a mass strip.

Campaigner Vincent Bethell has set a date and a time for the whole country to bare all -- Sunday, July 1, at 2pm.

The 28-year-old, who now lives in Coventry but was brought up in the Astley area and Merlewood Drive in Tyldesley where his father still lives, wants everyone to cast aside their hang-ups as they cast aside their clothes.

Vincent hit the headlines after he decided to follow a very public commitment to bringing the issue of nudity to a wider audience.

As reported in the Journal last week, the former pupil at St Mary's RC High School became the first person in history to stand trial in England stark naked.

A jury of 10 men and two occasionally red-faced women cleared him after he was charged with causing a public nuisance.

But it is all part of Vincent's plan to make people see that nakedness is not offensive and that we should accept our bodies.

It is certainly something Vincent has no problems with -- he walks naked through busy streets and shopping centres.

He has made highly publicised nude appearances outside a number of famous spots in London including the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, The High Court, St Paul's Cathedral and New Scotland Yard -- but he has still to grace the streets of his home town in the buff.

Speaking exclusively to the Journal, he said: "I can't say that I have been nude in the street in Tyldesley.

"I did a bit of mooning when I was younger. I once mooned out of the school bus window with my mates on a school trip to Alton Towers, but it was just silliness. Now I have a serious point to make."

He says his old friends from the area are very supportive.

And he doesn't expect that people from Tyldesley and Astley will be any different.

"My friends have always known I can be very passionate about things. I have always been interested in human social behaviour.

"They see me in the papers and on the TV news and they realise it's just me. People in the street all over the place recognise me and I get nothing but support from them. It would be the same in Tyldesley."

But Worsley MP Terry Lewis did not share his point of view when Vincent first started his campaign back in 1997. Vincent said: "I wrote to him to find out if nakedness was illegal and if so why. He replied, 'the majority of people do not share your views and rightly so'."

Vincent first became interested in nudism when studying an art foundation course at Salford College.

He made life drawings of nudes as part of his coursework which inspired him towards form his philosophy of life.

"The models got me thinking and it fitted into my inquisitive mind. I have been interested in what it means to be aware and what the meaning of life is. Seeing the artists modelling resonated with me.

"I wondered why we react to the human body in the way that we do."

He added: "We are obsessed with our appearance. People are unhappy with how they look. People have these hang ups and I think the world would be a better place if people were comfortable with their visual appearance."

It is a conviction which took him from a respected office job as a medical insurance claims assessor in Manchester to a life which has seen him arrested 20 times for public order offences in two years.

He has spent six weeks in Brixton prison for drawing a pound sign on a £60million Rembrandt painting at the National Gallery, an act he now regrets.

"I think it was a step too far. Now my protests do not harm anyone or anything. It is none sexual nakedness."

During his time in prison -- he also spent several weeks on remand -- he refused to wear any clothes. Even hardened criminals reacted to his nudity with wry amusement and words of support.

He said: "It brings a smile to people's faces and the prisoners were the same. They used to say 'respect' and 'keep it real' to me. It takes a lot of courage to stand in public with no clothes on."

Speaking from his home in Merlewood Drive, his father Michael, 54, a clerk at a manufacturing plant in Trafford Park, said he would like his son to leave his clothes on but admitted: "I can't control what he does. He's not harming anybody else. I think he's raised some interesting issues. However people may find his activities invasive.

"But Vincent's my son and you always support your children."