DRESSED up to the nines - that will be young Gabriella Hargraves when she dons her party frock on Thursday, for she is nine on 9/9/1999.

The coincidence makes Gabriella much more than a nine-day wonder, for as proud mum Tracy said: "Something like this happens only once a century - the last time would have been when someone was eight on 8/8/1888."

Gabriella herself, however, is less excited about the numbers game than the prospect of her parties to come.

"I'm having a family party at home on my birthday and a party for all my friends at the Stakis Hotel on Sunday (September 12)," she said, hoping fervently for a new CD player for her birthday surprise.

The keen young pop fan, of Warwick Road, St Annes, not only likes listening to music but singing too - she and her sisters, Rebecca, 10, and Scarlett, five, and friend Katie Jakeman have formed their own group - The Mad Girls.

"They've even written their own songs and made up dance routines which they perform for us," said Tracy, a secretary at a building firm, whose technician husband Paul has had to give up his garden shed for the Mad Girls' "office."

One day, Gabriella hopes to be a pop star - but for now she is more concerned about settling into her new school, St Thomas's CE Junior, having left Elmslie last term.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.