A FATHER is planning extend his home -- so his daughter can fit a new harp in the house!

Mike Nolan says he couldn't have known that when his three-year-old daughter saw a harp in Tellytubbies it would end up costing him thousands.

Now six years later Lucy Nolan, from Tockholes, has just been named the most promising harpist in the country at the Leamington Spa Arts Festival.

But while Mike is naturally a proud father, he can't help but count the cost of his daughter's prodigious talent.

That talent was ignited upon hearing a harp in the wacky children's television show.

When she is 12 her £1,000 half-size harp needs to be replaced with a concert harp, costing between £12,000 and £20,000.

He thinks he will need to build a conservatory to fit it in - and buy a new estate car to transport it.

And it looks like Mike will need all the money he can earn in his profession as a vet.

"She is looking like she is going to be that good so we are willing to do it," said Mike,

"If the teacher says she should carry on and she wants to carry on we would get one somehow.

"But we wont have to do this until she is 12 so we can start saving."

Lucy began studying the harp one year ago, and as far as the Nolan family are aware, she is the only young harpist in East Lancashire. She has lessons once a week 35 miles away in Stockport ---the nearest tutor after that would have been in Durham.

At the 91st annual Leamington Spa Music Festival Lucy won most promising harpist under 13, and best harpist for grades one and two - even though she is yet to take her grade one exam.

At the end of the ceremony she also won an award which effectively means she is the most promising harpist in the country of any age group.

She beat off competition from 50 others.

The family missed the presentation of this last award as they had set off back to the North West.

Mike said: "We left after she received her two awards because we thought that was it. When we got home from London her teacher had left 18 messages on our answer phone to try and let us know she had won the award.

"The judge said there was something very special about her."

"It came as a shock -- we didn't even consider she would win it.

"But she has taken it all in her stride and was very pleased to have won.

"She is a friendly and cheerful little girl, and this will give her a boost to help her keep going.

"We don't push her, this is her choice.

"But she really enjoys playing the harp and we hope she will carry on.

"I think she must get her musical talent from her mother, Susan, who reached grade 8 clarinet."

But Mike and Susan breathed a sigh of relief recently -- their seven year-old son, James, decided to take on the relatively cheap instrument, bassoon!